


their eyes were watching hell

by auralikh



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demon Hunters, Alternate Universe - Demons, Cannibalism, Eye Trauma, M/M, Mediums, Slow Burn, Spirits, Supernatural Elements, sorta enemies to friends to lov- to enemies to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2020-05-13 09:02:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 96,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19248031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auralikh/pseuds/auralikh
Summary: The Rens are probably the best group of mediums and demon hunters that can be found in the country, with psychic powers that have been passed down and enhanced for generations. Yet Hakuryuu finds himself indebted to a demon who seems to have little better to do with his time than con people out of their money.





	1. Chapter 1

Crowds along the street, next to the subway station, are commonplace. It’s a busy part of a busy city, after all, and a good place for people to busk or sell goods on the street. This one in particular seems to be riled up and unusually furious though.

Hakuryuu glances over at the crowd, stretching his neck up a little higher to try to get a glimpse at what’s going on. Not that it would be something that’ll stop him, though, he’s carrying too many important goods that his brothers need to waste time on such trifles. Except he spots the flickering of something dark in the corner of his eye. He stops. There it goes again, the sparks of black electricity jumping around whatever spectacle the people are watching. He tries not to budge too many strangers as he weaves his way into the source of the phenomenon. At the center is a table where a card game is being played.

“Looks like you lost again! Now hurry up and pay.” The dealer looks like he’s trying way too hard to look “exotic” and possibly culturally appropriative.

“Hhgh, you’re using a cheat I know it!” The man stomps on the ground as he gets up, throwing the bills onto the table. The dealer slides the money into a bag with his excessively bejeweled hand.

“I’m not cheating anyone, the last person was able to get a couple of wins, right?” There’s a flicker of dark lightning that bounced around all the bodies of the crowd. Everyone looks at each other and nods as if it’s obvious. Of course, this player just doesn’t know what he’s doing, there was a decent mixture of wins and losses before. The dealer glances around with red eyes that look too real for circle lenses and widen when they fall on Hakuryuu. He stands out from the rest, no doubt.

“I’ll go.” Hakuryuu says before the dealer gets the chance to try to lure him in with taunts. The dealer seems to like the initiative, with that big grin he’s making. He must be glad to see a person jump so willingly into his trap. “I don’t see how I could lose at such a simple game.” He adds just to stoke the fires of the man’s cockiness.

“Now that’s my favorite kind of player. Come on, sit down.” There’s a spark of black electricity that dances with delight from the dealer’s fingers. Despite how flashy the bursts of demonic magic was (to those who could see it in the first place), it looks rather low-level. He’s probably just using some simple illusion and charm magics to deceive people into thinking they won or lost regardless of what the true results are. Hakuryuu can work with that. He sits down at the table, keeping his left hand under the black and gold tablecloth.

“It’s just a matter of finding the queen of hearts after you shuffle the three cards, correct?” Hakuryuu maintains a friendly smile while the thumb of his left hand busies itself with writing characters on his palm.

“Yeah, that’s exactly how it works. Nothing more to it. So, how much are you betting this first time? You can go a little lower for your first time.”

“No need,” Hakuryuu’s friendly smile stretches into insincerity, “How much did that last round go for, five hundred? I’ll start with that.” He pulls out his wallet from his backpack and plants the exact amount of money on the table.

The dealer blinks then laughs. It sounds too cheerful for someone who’s obviously scamming people with the demonic arts. “Alright, I accept! Let’s start round one!”

The shuffling is fast but not too fast. Definitely less impressive than videos of actual scammers he’s seen online. No one would actually fall for this if there wasn’t magic involved. By the end, Hakuryuu knows for sure that the left card has the queen. He also sees a dark energy hovering above it and the middle card.

He brings his left hand out to tap the left card.

“You sure about that?” The dealer leans in a little and his gold earrings jingle. He moves to pick the card up with two fingers, “I’m so sorry bu- huh?”

The dark energy was gone, but more importantly, the queen of hearts frowns at the dealer, gaping mouth and all.

“You’re so sorry but what? Do you not have the five hundred that the other man just gave you?” Hakuryuu leans back and looks down at the conman (condemon?) with a smirk.

“But- wait, how-” The dealer flips the card back and forth, probably wondering where the spell had gone. He places the card back down, face up, and gives a decent attempt at a nonchalant shrug, “...Guess even a professional like me messes up occasionally. You won’t be lucky next time.”

“Fine, let’s do another five hundred then. I’m feeling lucky.”

“So am I.” There’s a glint to the dealer’s eyes that wasn’t there before. For a second, Hakuryuu thinks he could see a few too many sharp teeth in the short grin the dealer gave him. “Let’s do this.”

Hakuryuu’s surprised and a little disappointed that the dealer demon doesn’t change his magic tactics. He just seems to be casting them with more vigor? Not that it makes it particularly harder to dispel, so long as Hakuryuu’s able to write out the characters on his palm in time for him to make a decision. Hesitating to finish writing the spell before choosing a card doesn’t seem to arouse suspicion either. If anything, it only gives the dealer a brief moment of false hope before he’s disappointed by the draw and has to throw out more money. This ornately decorated man somehow simultaneously fits the “looks like a conman” and “looks like they can easily be conned” pegs. Hakuryuu would raise the bid and would barely need to nudge him before he grits his teeth and the challenge and dives into the trap. And Hakuryuu thought that demons are supposed to be more… scheming, cunning.

The crowd sticks around, but now to prod and insult the dealer, calling him out for this sudden streak of bad luck. What a streak of bad luck, indeed. It’s not every day that a demon running a low level con would deal with someone who could actually perceive and dispel the magic.

“Oh, did you run out?” Hakuryuu hopes so. He’s running out of space in his backpack to put all this cash in. He doesn’t even need the money, he just wants the fun of beating a demon at its own game.

The dealer grits his teeth and digs his nails a little too deep as he stacks his cards and puts them away. “Get the fuck out of here with you and your cheating.”

“Cheating? Me?” Hakuryuu points at himself, “How could I have cheated? I was just walking by and happened to be interested.”

The dealer glares at him. The glare is obviously steeped in anger and salt, but also seemed to look deeper, like one of those gazes that peer deep into one’s soul. “Your eyes. What kind of trick were you trying to pull?”

Ah. That side effect. Hakuryuu points at his left eye. “This? This isn’t a color contact. It got discolored from the same… accident that gave me this scar.” Calling it an “accident” makes Hakuryuu want to stab himself, but he wasn’t going to spill any real life details to a demon that might know curses that could exploit it.

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about. Spill it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. And if you can’t play any more rounds, then I’m done. I have business elsewhere and I don’t want to miss one more subway.” Hakuryuu puts on his backpack and stands up. The bag feels like one of those sacks of money that robbers would carry in cartoons, easy prey for pickpocketing, “Thank you for hosting the game, though. I genuinely enjoyed it.” He waves at the dealer and the crackling bolts of dark electricity around the table as he walked off to the subway station so he can finally get home.

 

* * *

 

Hakuryuu goes directly to the study once he’s back home. Hakuyuu’s sitting at the desk, looking over some papers with Hakuren peering over his shoulder.

Hakuren’s eyes dart up and smiles. “Hey, look who’s back! You were out for so long that I almost suspected you were skipping out on work.”

Hakuyuu looks up too but his expression remains serious as always. “Of course he wouldn’t, he’s not like you.” Hakuren huffs at that but the oldest brother doesn’t pay any mind. “Anyway, did you get everything?”

“Yeah.” It’s hard to pull out all of the goods without spilling the excess cash he’d gotten from the scam. “You’re right, the antiques store has way too many cursed and enchanted goods to be an accident, yet the owners themselves don’t seem to have a trace of supernatural ability in them. So it’s most likely from a customer or a spirit that entered the store through a pawned item.” There’s a whole random assortment of items, ranging from watches, rare books, stuffed animals, and even silverware. “But the actual curses don’t appear to be too heinous, so I should be able to handle the situation with Kougyoku just fine.” He’d rather go about it alone, but the family’s always been adamant about never handling these situations solo, and a mediocre job like this isn’t worth putting up a fight.

“What’s all that money you got there?” Hakuren walks over to pick up a stack of cash bills, looking down at the bag to see what appears to be dozens more of them. “You look like you just robbed a bank on the side. We don’t need the money.”

Hakuryuu knows they don’t, but he swipes the stack away from Hakuren’s hands anyway. “I happened to walk by a street con by some low-level demon. The magic he was using was simple enough so I just taught him a lesson.” He’ll probably just give the money away later, unless there’s some equipment they need to buy right away.

“Ah, nice one.” Hakuren smiles.

Hakuyuu isn’t smiling. “No, that’s not nice. You shouldn’t be getting yourself into these situations alone and potentially unprepared.”

“He was just using a simple illusion spell on the cards-”

“It could have other abilities. You don’t seem to have anything tracking you, at least. But who knows what else it could do.”

Hakuryuu bites the inside of his tongue. He can’t even finish his explanation, but what else is new? He places the antique items on the side of the desk, away from whatever papers the older two brothers were looking at. “Running street cons with easy magic is a telltale sign of a low level demon, I’m more than capable of handling that myself. If there wasn’t such a large crowd, I would’ve gotten rid of him entirely.”

Hakuren pats Hakuyuu’s back. “You should cut Ryuu some slack. He’s not gonna get any better if you keep worrying over him like that.” He looks at Hakuryuu, “But if that demon starts to cause any problem, you let us know, yeah? We’re family, so we gotta help each other out.”

“...Yeah.” There’s no ill will in either of them, of course. That’s what makes it all the more frustrating to deal with. Hakuryuu zips up his bag. “Do you need anything else from me for now?”

Hakuyuu still looks concerned but Hakuren waves his hand. “Nah, we’re good for now. Thanks, Ryuu.”

“No problem.” Hakuryuu wastes no time in going back to his room, putting all the money away in a box inside the closet to deal with later. He can’t be bothered to think about it now, since now it’s supposedly just a symbol of his rashness. At least he doesn’t have any other business with them for the day, and the only thing he has to concern himself with is homework for the night.

The homework goes by a little too quickly for his liking, since he finds himself staring at a poster of lunar phases with a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. He and Kougyoku have been taking up odd jobs to exorcise spirits and help fortify temples for a year and a half, yet while Hakuyuu and Kouen promised that they’ll work their way up in the family business, they’ve been stuck in the same ground-level work. They’re being way too cautious and slow if Hakuryuu is running into demons on the street in the middle of the day.

Which brings him to the question, what sort of demon was that anyway? A lot of low level demons have rather simplistic behavior, being born from fixations that last after death and reclaim a semi-physical form. Hakuryuu had expected the demon card dealer to try to curse him in the middle of the crowd for taking so much money. The dealer was furious, no doubt about it, but there was a weird restraint in his behavior. Hakuryuu didn’t notice any weird bindings, maybe it’s part of some contract. He opens up a book on demons he keeps on his desk at all times, title hidden by a simple book cover, to look for some entry that might fit what he saw.

None of the usual playful, mischievous types seem to fit. Anything that got relatively close in behavior have completely different ways of manifesting themselves physically - usually as either young children, old ladies, seductive women, or just animals or objects. The dealer’s hair was the longest he’s ever seen, but the face was most definitely masculine. A demon wouldn’t mess up in whatever gender they wanted to perform. Hakuryuu starts looking for anything even vaguely resembling the appearance of the demon he saw. Turns out there are almost no demon species that prefer to look like young men. And considering that the dealer didn’t look like he was trying to get into anyone’s pants, Hakuryuu could safely cross out incubus too. Maybe he’s not a demon at all, but a kitsune? They still prefer to appear as women, but men aren’t unheard of.

Hours later and Hakuryuu finds himself still poring over books and finding an incredible lack of anything that was like the encounter he just had. It was most definitely a demon though, the magic was proof of it. Most human witches can only work in indirect ways, nudging fortune and health in various directions, instead of specifically telling a six of spades to look like a queen of hearts. He looks at the clock. It’s past midnight. Fuck, and he actually needs to get up earlier than usual tomorrow, since the antique shop owners want them to fix the problem before the shop opens, and obviously before he has to go to school. He makes sure to put all of the books back in their place before going to sleep.

Either no time passed since turning off the lights or hours have passed when Hakuryuu felt his whole body bounce from the bed, mattress still shaking when he fell back down. The jade amulet he keeps on him is vibrating so much that it feels like it’s trying to burn a hole into his chest. Luckily it’s also glowing and in the green light he can see a grin that’s way too close for a sudden waking in the middle of the night.

“There you are.”

Hakuryuu kicks the intruder in the chest before he can think about anything else and hears a thud and a yelp on the ground. Once he’s actually thinking, he flips the lights on and finds the body of the dealer on the floor, rubbing the back of his head and groaning.

“Fuck…” The dealer gets back up and his hair is much longer than Hakuryuu expected. Sure, he could tell that the thick braids must go down a bit from the little pop up table that was set up on the street, but he didn’t think it would reach almost all the way down to the floor.

“...What are you doing here, no, _how_ did you get here?” Hakuryuu reaches under his pillow to grab a knife even though he’s aware that if this… thing can get here without any visible burns then he has no chance of survival, even if he’s well equipped, let alone just a knife and a pendant.

“By phasing through the walls, obviously.”

“But the defenses,” Maybe if he can keep the demon distracted, he can think of some way out of this, “Most supernatural beings would burn alive just trying to cross through them.”

“Oh, so that’s what that weird burning feeling was,” The demon looks down at his unscathed hands, “Not bad for humans, I guess. But anyway, what did I come here for again… oh right. You,” He points at Hakuryuu, “I want my money back.”

He just wants his money back? If he could get all the way here without a scratch, wouldn’t getting the money back be easy? What sort of high level demon cares about conning people out of their spare change with only weak spells?

“No.”

“No? I could burn your flesh from the inside out, have crows eat you alive. You’re like a psychic or an exorcist type, right? I could see it in the way your burned eye glows.” The dealer pulls at the skin under his left eye.

“Maybe I am.” Giving personal information would be the last thing that would help.

“Well if you are, you should know exactly what I can do.” Black lightning sparks from her fingers but they’re different from last time. Hakuryuu could feel pure power heating up the room, a warning of what this demon is actually capable of. It only makes it even more baffling why in the world he cares about the money.

“If I am, you should be wary since I’m not the only one that lives here.”

“Oh I’m sure I’ll be fine. I just want my money back, now give it to me.”

“...But I don’t have your money.” He’s a terrible liar, this isn’t going to work.

“Huh.”

Is he actually falling for it? “Yeah. It’s not in this house. I spent it immediately.”

“On what?”

“Things.”

The demon’s eyes narrow. “You’re fucking with me.” There’s not as much conviction in his voice as there could be. There’s no way this is working, right?

“Well I’m not. So I don’t have the money. It wasn’t even that much in the first place.” It’s definitely a large sum of money, but Hakuryuu’s betting on a lack of human common sense here. He gets up but keeps one hand back, hidden under the pillow with the knife.“If you’re such a powerful being, then I don’t see why such a minor sum would concern you, or why you would even have put the work into a simple street con earlier anyway?”

The demon puts his hands on his hips and the braid swings back and forth behind him. “...I was bored, okay? Not everything has to be part of a big master plan, I don’t know why you mortal bastards keep expecting that. It was a random thing I did, but I did it so I want my shit back.”

“You mean the money you stole off of people.” Hakuryuu inches the knife closer.

“ _You_ mean the money I won off from them.”

“It’s not winning if you’re scamming them.” Closer.

“It’s not scamming! I didn’t force anyone to play or to keep playing more rounds, that’s all their fault.”

“I don’t think you understand the meaning of scamming.” Almost there.

“Fuck off, the last time I was out and about, everyone was too busy dying of the plague to worry about the minute details of what scamming means.”

“You seem up to date on your profanity, though.” Hakuryuu lunges with the knife and the demon sidesteps it like a natural transition in a dance.

“No shit, it’s the first thing I check up on,” He glances down at the engravings on the blade but doesn’t look impressed, “Also what are you trying to do? Baby psychic like you can’t kill me with a toothpick like that.”

“Don’t underestimate me.” Hakuryuu hisses. “If you’re so strong then why haven’t you just killed me?”

“I could’ve. Could’ve made the crowd of people rip you apart in a frenzy. But I don’t really feel like killing you. Maybe I’ll even mess with you more after you give me back my shit.” The demon’s grinning and it’s hard to tell if it’s more mischief or excitement.

Hakuryuu narrows his eyes. “What, why?”

There’s a knock on the door.

“Hakuryuu…? Are you up?” Oh no it’s his sister. If she finds out, then the rest of the house is going to find out and Hakuryuu’s honestly not sure if taking on this demon right now will work.

“Y-yes, sorry, I was just using the restroom!” Hakuryuu yells through the door, eyeing the demon to make sure he doesn’t do anything strange. Weirdly enough, he’s not.

“Oh, it sounded like you were talking to someone?”

The demon smirks, “Ye-”

Hakuryuu covers the demon’s mouth. “Not at all! I was just… watching a video too, I’m sorry if it woke you up, but please go back to bed.”

There’s a pause, a pause long enough to show that there’s no way Hakuei really believed what Hakuryuu just said. “...Okay, you should go back to sleep too.”

“Of course, good night sister.”

“Ymmgh renlnm gmnf udfhg hh.”

Hakuryuu uncovers the demon’s mouth.

“You really got others, huh.” He wipes his mouth off. “Alright fine, if you really don’t have the money then you should still pay me back. With interest. I’ll be keeping my eye on you so you better not think about sliding this off.”

“Who says I’ll pay?”

“I’ll bother you to hell and back.” The demon opens up the window and sits on the sill. “I’ve got loads of curses I’ve been waiting to try out. Even if you knew how to dispel all of them, just the process of doing that would be another curse in itself.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“We will. See you.” He falls back first out the window. Hakuryuu doesn’t bother to look down and just closes the window and draws the blinds. He checks the time on his phone. 4:23am. He might as well stay awake until it’s time to take a visit to that antique shop with Kougyoku.


	2. Chapter 2

“You look tired.” By tired, Hakuryuu really means that Kougyoku barely even has any makeup on.

Kougyoku yawns, covering her mouth with her oversized pink cat hoodie sleeve. “You look even more tired, were you up all night?”

“I slept a bit.” It’s hard to go back to sleep when a demon suddenly trespassed your heavily protected room as if it was as easy as opening an unlocked door. On the bright side, it gave him more time to prepare, not that this job is anything major. “If you’re sleepy, you can go back. I should be able to handle this by myself.”

She pouts. “You always want to work alone. I thought Hakuyuu tried to drill it in you that mediums-”

“-shouldn’t work alone, in case of possession.” Hakuryuu sighs and knocks on the shop door. “I’m quite aware, but I don’t think a minor spirit that is putting bad luck on some antiques will overpower me.”

“Whatever. Even if I wanted to leave, Kouen would never let me hear the end of it.” Guess that's  one similarity they have with each other.

An old man opens the door. "Ah, right on time. Come on in."

They enter the store. All the items at the front appear to be quality vintage items of all sorts: music boxes, clocks, dolls, china sets, vanities, books. Kougyoku didn't inherit the same level of supernatural perception as Hakuryuu, so he makes sure to look around as the old man leads them to the back of the store. One of the dolls' eyes follows them as they walk, but it looks more like the work of the human dollmaker than the work of some other being.

"To be honest," the old man has to cough and clear his throat as he opens the door to the back storage, "I still have my doubts on whether this is… a supernatural issue."

"That's completely understandable, sir." Hakuryuu keeps his voice soft and polite. "It's hard to find someone who truly believes in something like spirits nowadays. But I assure you, if this isn't the source of the problem then you will be able to request a refund." They're a somewhat expensive service, but not a scamming one, unlike some demon who's still on the back of his mind.

"But you won't need to worry about that!" Kougyoku jumps in. "We've already confirmed curses in the items we took in for inspection, and someone is working on purifying them as we speak."

"I know this must sound absurd since you are still skeptical, but I must ask that you stay away from this room while we're working." Hakuryuu sets down a large sheet of paper with a diagram of the Big Dipper in the middle of the storage room. He would've wiped down the dusty floor first if the old man didn't look like he was criticizing every move Hakuryuu's making. "It would be dangerous if someone abruptly interrupted the process. We'll let you know when you're done."

"Hm." the old man looks at his watch. "How long will it take you?"

"Less than thirty minutes, you'll have your shop ready to go by opening time." Kougyoku smiles.

“Alright. Don’t rush though, I’d rather you take your time and do a proper job than speed through it and potentially make things worse.” The shop owner walks away slowly, hands behind his back.

It takes just a couple of minutes to get everything set up, it’s a common ritual to perform for easier jobs, and these easier jobs have become like their daily gruel. Kougyoku shuts the door behind them and with only the dim light of candles and the harsh beams of flashlights to illuminate the space, it looks much more like the setting of an exorcism in a third rate horror movie. Mainly because Kougyoku and Hakuryuu still use their phone flashlights right up until the start of the ritual, not to mention they have no reason to wear period clothing. 

Hakuryuu stands in front of the astrological diagram and takes a deep breath, in and out. “The spirit doesn’t look like it’s around at the moment, so I’ll need to lure it back in first. Can you get me the pocket watch? It’s in the middle pocket of the bag, it’s sealed separately in a plastic bag.” 

“Am I just here to fetch you things?” Kougyoku whines but pulls the pocket watch out of the bag and hands it to Hakuryuu anyway.

“Like I said, you could go back.” Hakuryuu clasps his hands on the pocket watch that still harbors a curse of nightmares. Through his eyes and his alone, a dark smoke emanates from the object, masking much of the warm glow of the candles. The smoke curls and twists as it rises higher into the air, trying to wrap itself around Hakuryuu’s fingers and face. The swirls of smoke spin outwards again, as if bouncing off of his skin. All of his siblings, even Hakuyuu, would need gloves to handle something like this, but Hakuryuu never has issues with most cursed items with his bare hands. It’s probably the only obvious strength he has compared to the others, even if he has no explanation for why these curses tend to bounce off him. 

“Like I said, we have to stick around for jobs.” She pulls out a knife from one of her oversized sleeves, twirling it around her hand like there’s nothing like there’s nothing better to do. Considering that physical weapons probably won’t be needed at all, there probably isn’t much to do. 

“Then that’s your problem.” Hakuryuu places the cursed object on the ground, just inches away from the diagram.  “And don’t move the knife around too much, it’ll interfere.” Kougyoku huffs but stops. 

Hakuryuu takes another couple of deep breaths to ground himself, to set himself at a pace proper for the ritual. It might be a relatively simple ritual, but it still needs to be done properly unless he wants to accidentally lure hundreds of other spirits and curse the entire neighborhood. Now that his breath has slowed, he folds his hands together, one on top of the other but in opposite directions. They’re interlocked together by the pointer and pinky fingers, the other two fingers folded into the palm. It probably looks absurd to anyone who doesn’t understand finger gestures, but at least this particular gesture doesn’t look like some naruto jutsu shit. He inhales, takes one step, exhales, three more steps. His feet shuffle around the diagram on the floor in that order. Kougyoku pulls out a different knife, one with ribbons and bells at the end, jingling on beat as Hakuryuu starts to recite an incantation. 

The smoke trembles and the ends of the wisps shake violently, flailing out to its master. As Hakuryuu finishes the incantation, the smoke freezes in place for a second before dissolving. The candlelights flicker and the walls groan and shudder over the bells that are still jingling in the back. Hakuryuu stops walking and holds out the finger gesture he’s been maintaining.

“Show yourself, foul spirit, in accordance with the statutes and ordinances.” 

There’s a sizzling noise. It rises in volume, like a pan of flesh being cooked right behind his ear. The pocket watch resting in front of the diagram heats up to the point where the metal is starting to burn red. Bells ring faster, in an almost frantic pace. Sparks fly out from the pocket watch and a lizard with the head of an emaciated woman crawls out from the cracks of the object, growing to an almost human size as it frees itself. Its hair is sparse but an inky black, covering most of its eyes and dragging down to the floor.

“Foul spirit,” Hakuryuu glares directly at it. A fool’s move for a beginner, but the wholly red eyes of the creature stirs nothing in him. “You should be crawling in the depths of hell. What is your business here?”

Its mouth opens far wider than anything vaguely resembling a human face should, the inside of which is red with dark spots of rot. “I’ve already done my job, I have nothing to tell you.”

“I could either send you back to hell or erase you,” Hakuryuu twists his fingers into a different position so he’ll be ready to kill the thing immediately, “If you value your wretched existence, I suggest you talk. You’re no unique from the other nuisances that have been corrupting this area.”

It hisses. “Like I said, I was just here to do my job. I don’t question what my master tells me to do.”

“Who’s your master.”

“A King of Hell that you amateurs would have no chance with.”

Hakuryuu scowls. “We’ll see when we track it down and destroy it. Now begone.” He immediately starts chanting a different incantation, walking around the diagram in the opposite direction. The spirit tries to lunge at him but freezes mid air, choked noises spilling from its throat instead of the pile of threats and insults he’s sure it has. Kougyoku’s ringing the bells again, the blade of the magic knife aimed right at the spirit’s head and ready to throw it right onto its temple at any moment. She won’t, though. Simply finishing the incantation should be all that’s necessary to render the thing into ash.

“-O Dark Lady, master of invisibility, command your jade maidens to pierce the rotting flesh of the enemy. Promptly, promptly, in accordance with the statutes and ordinances!”

The reptilian abomination doesn’t even get to say any last words before it falls apart into a pile of ash, with the candles blowing out simultaneously. Kougyoku turns on her phone flashlight.

“Ow, not right at me!” Hakuryuu covers his eyes.

“Ah! Sorry!” She points the light to the ground to look at the pile of ash that’s buried the pocket watch. “Let me get the lights.” She does and they immediately get to cleaning up. Hakuryuu gets an ashtray from his bag and sweeps the remnants of the spirit up, pouring it into the plastic bag that was used to contain the now curse-free pocket watch. 

Kougyoku sighs as she rolls up the diagram. “Looks like it really was a job just for you. Again.”

“That’s just how these easier jobs tend to be, you know that.” He double and triple checks to make sure that the bag is tightly sealed and he won’t have cursed ashes all over the ritual implements when they have to stay in the bag for the majority of the day. 

She frowns and looks away as she keeps putting the implements back into the bag. “I know. It’d be nice if we had more jobs where we could… actually work as a team? Like… a vampire, or a kitsune… maybe one day we’ll get lucky and get to fight a fanalis, that would be exciting.” 

“...You know fanalis are technically on our side. They’re supposed to keep demons and damned souls in hell.” Hakuryuu puts the last candle in the bag and zips it up.

“Of course I know that! But there are always outliers.” 

“Outliers are outliers for a reason, you almost never see them.” Unless you mess around with someone’s card game scam.

Kougyoku doesn’t reply. Instead she opens the door and goes out to inform the shop owner that the problem has been solved. Hakuryuu follows behind to help explain the details, and further instructions to burn some incense and do some deep cleaning of the room in order to prevent any complications. 

“You really were able to get it done quickly,” the old man pursed his lips in a way where he looks like he’s not sure whether to keep a stoic expression or smile, “Thank you for your help.”

Hakuryuu bows his head. “We’re glad to be of your service, sir. I believe Koumei previously explained the pricing to you?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll be paying in cash.” The shop owner takes a second to pull out the sum from his wallet, handing it over to Hakuryuu.

“Thank you. Please let us know if there are any complications and we’ll come to your aid as soon as possible.” The old man nods and the two exorcists bow before leaving the shop.

Kougyoku checks her phone. “It’s already 6:40? Oh no, I left my assignment so I can work on it this morning...”

Hakuryuu tilts his head. “Don’t you just have to design some outfits?”  

“It’s not just sketching some random clothes and calling it a day! I have to make them for this project too…” Her shoulders deflate as she messages someone. “Are you also going directly to school?”

“Yeah. I have archery practice.”

“Man… school, archery club, cooking club, family business… you really do everything, don’t you?”

“I don’t draw clothes for a grade.”

Kougyoku lightly slaps his arm.

 

* * *

With the job done, Hakuryuu probably won't have any real work-related tasks left for about a week. The gaps used to be longer but their services are being requested more often recently. Hakuyuu and Kouen suspect that there are some stronger demons underlying the cause, and Hakuryuu's mind can't help but to go back to that demon he'd encountered twice yesterday. Since school’s over, he can make some time to investigate the matter, but frankly, he has no idea where to start. Hakuryuu stares out the bus window, watching all the cars stuck in traffic, each a bubble of an individual's own frustrations, a potential bed of food for all sorts of spirits and other creatures. It's hard to believe that demon, whatever it's named or called, could be masterminding anything, considering it went all the way to track and not kill him over stolen money.

At the same time, he has read about demons generally causing additional issues just by existing with a chaotic aura that can stir otherwise resting spirits, nudging the ones that are just on the verge of vengeful. Or perhaps he's just one of a multiple demons that decided to arise for whatever reason, a rat latching on to a stampeding ox.

"Hey."

Hakuryuu jumps in his seat but his face remains stiff frozen. It probably looks like he tried to hard to maintain his expression. It's because he did. The demon in front of him grins as he takes a seat right next to Hakuryuu.

"... What are you doing here."

"I said I'll bother you to hell and back to get what I want. So now I'm doing it." The demon blows a bubble with gum and it pops, making a couple of the other passengers turn their heads. "I want my shit back."

"I said I don't have it." Hakuryuu looks out at the window again.

"Well I want the amount of the shit you took. All three thousand four hundred seventy two dollars and twenty nine cents."

Hakuryuu gives him a look.

"What?" The demon frowns. "Thought I can't do math?"

"You certainly can't read the mood."

"Don't need to."

Hakuryuu glares at the demon. “If you think that being a nuisance will get you anywhere, let me make this quick and tell you that it won’t.” He puts on earphones and breathes a sigh of relief when the bus starts to move again. It won’t be much longer until it gets to the next stop and Hakuryuu can leave. Is it anywhere close to home? No, but he’d rather deal with something like this in the streets than the crowded confines of a bus. Anything unnatural will be spotted and recorded immediately by all the people who are already pretending to busy themselves on their phones. 

“What’s this?” Hakuryuu glares at the demon again when the other pulls out one of his earphones.

“They’re earphones.” Hakuryuu yanks it out of the other’s hand, but the demon just pulls it out again.

“Earphones? Do they work just like those phones then?” He rotates it slowly around his hand, inspecting it like it was some odd insect corpse. 

Right. He said he hasn’t been around since people were dying of the plague. Still, it’s weird to see this kind of behavior with objects Hakuryuu takes for granted. “...No, not at all. If you hook it up to your phone or another device you can listen to music privately on it instead of blasting it out in a public area like this.” 

The demon presses the earphone against his ear. “But I’m not hearing anything.”

“Well that’s because I’m not playing anything.”

“Then why’d you put them on?”

“To ignore you.” Hakuryuu grabs the earphone again, wipes it on his pants, and puts it back in his ear. It’s pretty useless now that the demon knows exactly why he did that, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they’re almost at the next bus stop and Hakuryuu pulls at the string under the window to tell the bus driver he’s going to leave. Unfortunately he has to scoot past the hellish nuisance in order to leave.

“Is this your stop?” 

“Yeah.”

“What a coincidence, it’s mine too.” No it’s not, you literally just got on this bus one stop ago. Hakuryuu doesn’t bother to say that and pretends to look like he knows where he’s going once he gets off the bus. As long as they’re in a very public area, nothing big should occur. Unless this demon doesn’t care about making a spectacle and possibly causing a national panic. Hakuryuu barely knows anything about him yet he wouldn’t be surprised if something like that does actually occur. 

“Hey!” The demon runs up and stops Hakuryuu in his track, “Stop pretending to ignore me.”

“I’m not pretending anything.” Hakuryuu tries to move to the side but the demon keeps blocking him. God, it’s like a comedy or an annoying child jumping around to make sure they get the ice cream they want. “I’m not giving anything to you. Move out of the way.”

“No. What part of “I’ll bother you to hell and back” do you not get, uh…” The demon frowns, “What’s your name, anyway?”

“None of your business.” Hakuryuu tries to push through again. It doesn’t work, but he had to at least try. 

“You know the only way to get rid of me is to pay me back,” The demon glances at the building they’re in front of, “I’ll even be generous and let you start with small payments. At least buy me a pastry, that cafe looks nice.”

“You're kidding me.”

“Nope.”

Hakuryuu wishes he could just deck the guy and go home, but that would probably just lead to another unfortunate night visit. At the same time, would buying this demon a pastry help reduce the annoyance or only exacerbate it? 

“Is a five dollar purchase really worth all that thought?” The demon’s expression is serious for once.

Everything in Hakuryuu’s core is telling him that he most definitely should not go with this. Why in the world should he even be interacting with someone, no some _ thing _ , like this for so long in the first place? He should tell the rest of his family, then they could think of some plan to deal with this nuisance that could turn into a danger at any second. But Hakuyuu will probably tell him to just stay back, let the older, more experienced ones take care of the situation, and he’ll just be tasked to deal with another minor exorcism while pretending the issue doesn’t exist. 

“Fine. I’ll treat you, if you really do mean that it’ll count towards the… debt.” If anything, this demon doesn’t seem to be scheming. Perhaps if Hakuryuu acts a bit more friendly, then the other will lower his guard, eventually expose some weaknesses. And when that time comes, his siblings and his cousins will have to acknowledge his abilities for defeating a demon that none of them would be able to handle solo. It’s a rough, dumb plan, but he’s in a situation where he can only work with rough and dumb. 

Hakuryuu could see a hint of fangs when the other grins. “Nice! You’re going to buy me some peach tarts. Oh, and a drink too.”

“That’s not a five dollar purchase.” Hakuryuu frowns but they enter the cafe anyway. He buys three peach tarts and an iced tea for the demon (apparently called Judar, though Hakuryuu doubts any free running demon would give an exorcist their real name) and a cold brew for himself. They sit down at the table furthest from everyone else.

Judar digs right in to one of the peach tarts. Hakuryuu decides he’s just not going to question why the other’s sitting cross legged on a chair. “So, I gave you my name. Are you ever going to tell me yours, I wanna at least know who I’m bothering at random hours of the day.”

He’s going to get another night visit after all. He mentally adds “need to add more defenses to his room” onto his mental checklist. “It’s Hakuryuu.”

“Hakuryuu, huh…” Judar finishes the first tart so quickly he might not have tasted it at all. “Is it your job to randomly meddle in people’s affairs?

“It’s kind of my job to meddle in demonic affairs.” Hakuryuu states plainly. Judar glances down at the backpack and the larger bag next to it on the floor.

“What do you got there?”

“School things. Things I can use to send you back to hell.” Hakuryuu sips his coffee. “I had a job earlier today, getting rid of a fairly weak spirit that was cursing an antique shop.”

“Oh, so you’re a professional?” The word rings out from Judar’s tongue and he leans a little closer, “Always wanted to meet one. It’s a good thing I didn’t decide to just kill you on the spot!” He’s saying that in such a cheery manner that it’s unnerving.

“And I never thought I’d be able to see someone of your caliber by happenstance.” Hakuryuu gets a good look at Judar. He’s wearing pretty much the same thing as before, except if anything, there might be more gold bracelets on his arms this time. “What exactly are you doing around this area, anyway? Is it all just because you’re “bored”?”

“Hm. Sort of.” The demon shrugs and slurps his ice tea. “I haven’t been able to just. Do whatever I want in a long while and there’s nothing fun to do in hell so I came up here. Simple as that.”

Transparent and easy to change the conversation. How convenient. Hakuryuu stirs the ice in his coffee with his straw. “Most demons with a certain degree of ability tend to stay in hell unless summoned, with the amount of responsibilities they have in hell’s internal politics.”

“I mean yeah but fuck that.” Judar moves on to the second peach tart with equal vigor. He doesn’t start talking again until he’s finished eating it. “I was fucked over with a contract once and never again. Up here there’s a lot of new, interesting stuff. Way better food too. God I’m so glad peaches didn’t go extinct.”

“So you’re just... Trying to live, is what you’re saying.” Hakuryuu’s not sure whether he can believe something like that, whether he should believe something like that. His rational side won’t let him. 

“Pretty much.” Judar’s almost done with his drink while Hakuryuu’s barely scratched the surface. “At least while there’s still fun stuff to do around here. Destroying an entire city in one go would be really fun too.” His face lights up with a grin when Hakuryuu glares at him. “What’s that face for? You should try it out sometime.”

“...I’m sure you’ll find plenty of interesting things to keep you occupied for a while.” The words come out a little too stiff but Judar doesn’t seem to care, since he goes on to munch on the last peach tart nonchalantly. “How long have you been here anyway?”

“Uh…” Judar finishes up his last bite. “About… three days? Yeah? Yeah. Basically just got here.” He gets up with his drink, slurping up the last fourth of it. “Alright, thanks for the food. I think I prefer this method of payment over the usual handing over bags of money.”

Hakuryuu blinks. “You’re leaving already?”

“Oh? You want me to stay?” The demon gives a teasing smile and his canines stick out more sharply than usual. “Well, too bad! This place is getting stuffy already.” 

“...We just got here. And this cafe isn’t even that crowded.”

“Yeah and it’s still stuffy which means I don’t like it. The tarts were good though. I’ll see you soon then,  _ Hakuryuu. _ ”

Hakuryuu finds himself left alone in cafe with a mediocre cup of coffee and still barely a clue on what to do with this demon. He checks his phone and finds a text from Hakuei if he’s going to be back in time for dinner. He makes sure to tell her that he’ll be there and cook it for her, the last thing he needs is an upset stomach while trying to figure out whether he should try to stretch out his interactions with Judar to get more information or try to cut things as short as possible. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hastily researching daoist exorcism rituals has already affected my ads and now i'm getting ads for wiccan audiobooks i hope y'all are satisfied with this vaguely done spirit killing


	3. Chapter 3

“Is no one else joining to eat today?” Hakuryuu looks out at the dining room from the kitchen, “I should’ve made less food then.”

“There’s nothing wrong with leftovers.” Hakuei at least helps out with setting up the table, while Koumei sits at the dining table, calculating something with his tablet. Kouen is there too, on his phone and most likely responding so business emails like always. Hakuryuu would be able to tolerate it if it actually had to do with the family business, but if it had to do with Kouen’s separate entrepreneurial venture or Koumei’s dungeons and dragons campaigns then he’ll just say he only cooked enough for himself and his sister. As he brings the plate of salmon onto the dining table, it’s clear that they are actually dealing with business.

“Based on the coordinates we have so far,” Koumei rotates the laptop so Kouen can see the map that’s on the screen, with red dots speckled around the area in clusters, “There is a regular pattern to the incidents we’ve been dealing with, as expected.” He clicks on a button and lines appear that connect the various points within the clusters together, and bolder lines that connect key points within each separate cluster in an octagon shape. “Right now we’ve got eight coordinates of possible beds of the demonic activity that we could investigate.”

Kouen stares at the map, tracing his finger against one of the lines connecting a local library to a mall. “Good work. Can you narrow those points down further?”

“I can try. I’ll probably need more data to get anything conclusive, though.”

“We won’t have a problem getting more data, I’m sure of it.” Neither of them pay attention to the food, plates, and utensils that are all served onto the dining table. Typical.

“Do you need any help? I could investigate the locations over the weekend.” Hakuryuu sits down at his spot on the dining table. It feels oddly filled yet sparse with only four of them here. Hakuei sits right next to him, waiting for their cousins to put the computer aside. 

“We’ll see if we can narrow the locations down more before going in for any hands-on investigation.” said Kouen, and it’s basically another form of saying no. They’ll narrow things down and then start investigating immediately on their own time, is what it really means. 

“You just finished up a job today, right?” Koumei closes the laptop and sets it aside so they can start eating.

“Yes,” Hakuryuu nods. “It was fairly simple, didn’t require more than twenty minutes.” 

“You’re getting faster at this, good work.” Kouen’s voice is monotone but it always is, unless they’re talking about magic theory. It’s a shame he can’t see many of the evil energies that he’s so hung up on understanding. 

Hakuryuu doesn’t reply to Kouen, so instead Hakuei speaks up, “Oh, I’m almost done dispelling all of the curses from the items you brought here. It should be done by tomorrow afternoon. What was the address of the shop again?”

“Oh, don’t worry sister, I can just take it to them myself.” 

“Actually, there’s another job that I want you and Kougyoku to deal with tomorrow.” Kouen speaks up, “Apparently a cafe of all places just started to have some troubles. It’s very close by, so it shouldn’t be much for you to check in on the place later. I’ll send you the address then.” 

Hakuryuu nods. Another job already? They must have their hands full, but it also probably means that the issue in the cafe is likely another weak spirit, or maybe a new witch accidentally did something they shouldn’t have after the barista got their order wrong. Or maybe there was a demon dropping by with nothing better to do. But no, that feels like too many coincidences lining up right next to each other, real life never works like that. After all, there must be hundreds of cafes in the city, no way it’s the same place he had just dropped by. 

When Hakuryuu gets a text from Kouen with the name and address of the cafe, he’s sure that he’s no longer in real life. Cafe Noire, on 5th Avenue. That’s exactly the same place he and Judar randomly stopped at. He’s living a farce of a life, one that keeps bringing everything back to this one demon who just wants his money back. He tosses his phone on his bed and groans. Maybe if he does return the money, he can move on to better things. But what better things? Delivering Judar’s head on a plate would be the fastest way for him to ever gain respect as an exorcist. And in this situation, he doesn’t even need to worry about how to track the demon, since he keeps coming back like an alley cat you fed that one time and remembers where you live. 

He sits at his desk and pulls out thin sheets of yellow paper and a calligraphy brush set, maintained as clean as it could be. Dipping the paintbrush in a cup of water, Hakuryuu dabs the hairs of the brush against the ink block, pressing just enough for the top layer of dusty red to come alive and fluid. There’s no point in trying to slap more protection talismans on his wall if Judar is able to easily pass through them without toil. However, what he can do is try to make a talisman that would warn him if the demon is approaching the room so that he could at least be prepared for the next visit. It takes a second for him to think about how to write “Judar” considering it’s not Chinese at all, but he tries to write something that sounds close enough at the center of the talisman.  裘达尔 is about the closest he could manage, even if it doesn’t really sound like his name, but languages are just like that. The brush paints each character over the other, binding them together in the sanguine ink. As long as the intention is there, the talisman should understand who the target is supposed to be. Hakuryuu breathes in, remembers the red eyes with the glint of something chaotic, and drags the last stroke out, curling it before it falls out of the talisman paper and encircles the name, flicking the end to give it the appearance of a feline tail. That’s one aspect. He dips the brush in more of the ink and gets to writing more characters, curled and wavy and fighting for each other’s space. The power of a talisman is ruined if it is made legible, so the strokes fight and dance with each other instead. When he’s satisfied, he sets it to the side of the table so he can make another for the opposite side of his room while the first one dries.

They’re up on the walls within the next hour. Hakuryuu stares at the one positioned near the window. Will this actually help anything? Probably not. But he doesn’t have the time to sit there and ruminate on something so trifling, he has more than enough other things to work on.

And as it turns out, Judar didn’t visit that night anyway. Maybe he’s got someone else to bother. 

 

* * *

Hakuryuu’s never sure what to expect from a client, while often times they’re older Chinese immigrants that still hold on to religious beliefs, there’s also been a high amount of young, New Age looking hipsters that just realized that there’s more to magic than the West, but now there were also a good deal of seemingly normal, random people that are just getting desperate enough to try a service they don’t believe in. But he definitely did not expect to recognize the face of the barista at the counter.

“Oh, Hakuryuu! How’s it going?” Cheery as always. Hakuryuu never understood how that could not be faked, but the smile is as genuine as can be. 

“...Alibaba.” He walks up to the counter, “I didn’t know you worked here.”

“Ah, well, I only just started like two months ago. Anyway, how can I help you?”

Hakuryuu glances around. There only seems to be a couple other people working at the moment. “Actually I came here for business reasons. I believe someone who works here called for an… investigation?” It’s the most vague way he could put it for a classmate that might just think he’s crazy for performing rituals with bells, mirrors, and swords for spirits people believed in centuries ago.

“Oh. Wait.” Alibaba leans in slightly to whisper, “You’re the uh… mystic, right?” 

“I’d prefer medium or exorcist.” Hakuryuu whispers back. There’s another person coming in to stand behind him, probably someone who actually wants to get their coffee. 

“I knew you said your family was traditional, but I didn’t know you meant it like that.” Alibaba looks around and taps the nearest barista on the shoulder, “Hey Kassim can you cover me for a bit? Thanks.” 

Alibaba steps out of the counter and leads Hakuryuu towards the back… to the same table that he and Judar sat at the other day. “I was actually the one that noticed an issue first. There’s been a lot of… weird arguments that have been coming up for whoever sits in this area. Even people who sit alone start to act really strange and pick fights with other people until we have to kick them out. Someone joked that it was cursed but… there’s been a lot of strange stuff in the news.”

Hakuryuu looks out the window. There’s a corpse of a man hanging from a rope, mouth agape with a bright red tongue hanging all the way down to his knees. He looks back at Alibaba, “So you’re saying you believe in these kinds of things. Curses. Ghosts.”

“Huh? Uh, well. It’s more like there’s no way to really tell everything that’s out there.” Alibaba rubs the back of his neck. 

“Ah, I just never thought of you as that type.” Hakuryuu looks back at the hanging figure. People out on the streets walk through it without noticing anything. That’s bad, it means that the cursing could affect all sorts of people in wherever they’re scattering off to.

“Hey, you look even less like the type to be doing this kind of work,” Alibaba pouts and looks out the window to try to see what Hakuryuu seems to be interested in. Of course, to him, it’s just a normal view of the city street and all the people that are going about their daily lives. “I figured you’d be the hard skeptic type, the kind that doesn’t believe it until they see it.”

“You’re not wrong.” It’s just that he does see the things that normal, oblivious people can’t. He’s practically been selectively bred for the job. “...Are there any other businesses on the floors above?” 

“No, I think it’s just some apartments up there. Why?”

“It looks like the source of the problem.” Hakuryuu walks right next to the window and tries to look up, maybe get a grasp of how high the rope of the ghost goes. “...And I don’t think I can do much with this type of issue from here. Do you know who lives up there?”

“No idea,” Alibaba cranes his head too, “What sort of problem is it?”

Hakuryuu lowers his voice, “...Looks like ill will leftover from a suicide. I’ll have to check the residences upstairs but until then, it would be best for the cafe if I just move the table away to the back.” He swats Alibaba’s hand out of the way when the barista reaches for the table. “Don’t. Touch it. Unless you want to get kicked out too. Just show me where we can put this aside for now.”

Alibaba nods and leads Hakuryuu to a back storage room while Hakuryuu carries the table out. He made sure to move the chairs out of the way too, and covers them all with a whtie sheet with the hope that no one would be stupid enough to mess with it.

“So how long have you been doing this anyway?” asks Alibaba.

“About as long as I can remember.” Hakuryuu slaps a talisman on the white sheet to make sure that so long as no one takes the sheet away, no one else should get cursed by the table and chairs until he deals with the root of the problem. “...You could call it a family business, and it takes years to be properly trained. Make sure no one messes with the sheet, by the way.” 

“Wow, I had no idea you had that kind of life.” Of course he didn’t. It’s not the kind of thing that one would just proclaim to the world, especially not in this day where most people refuse to believe in the energies of life and death that surround them. “So your whole family does this then, for a living?” Alibaba grabs a sign that says “Do not touch” from the crates and places it on the sheet, a fair distance away from the talisman. 

“We’ve been doing this for generations. It’s not the only thing we do though, most of the time it’s more like a side job, especially since the demand for this kind of work has only shrunk.” Until recently, that is, but Hakuryuu has no reason to tell something like that to a normal person like Alibaba. 

“Oh, that’s pretty cool, kind of like having a secret double life.”

“I don’t know about that.” They exit the storage room. “Anyway, I’ll need to go up and see if I can do anything about the source of the problem. Am I billing you or the business?”

“Huh?” Alibaba blinks. “If I told the owner about this, there’s no way she’d believe me…” 

“So to you then, alright.” 

“Hey wait, how much is this going to cost? Can I get a friend discount? I’m a little tight on money...”

“I can’t be sure until after finding more about what’s causing the problem but I’m not subsidized by the government, Alibaba,” Hakuryuu sighs. “You should probably get back to work. Apologies for taking so much time. I’ll text you with any updates.”

“It’s not a problem at all. Thanks for stopping by, Hakuryuu!” Alibaba smiles but there’s an anxious fidget on the corner of his mouth. Part of Hakuryuu wants to consider covering the cost for him, since Alibaba has been a helpful friend and all, but if any of his siblings or other customers caught word of it… no, he’ll just make sure to pack extra food for lunches. 

He turns his head to the window to look at the hanged ghost again and almost drops his stuff when he sees Judar there too, looking at the spirit and tapping its leg to watch it swing sluggishly.

“Uh, I’ll see you later then, Alibaba.” The words spill carelessly as he goes immediately for the exit to walk around the windows and directly to the demon that’s probably going to be the cause of all of his jobs. 

“Judar,” Hakuryuu glares right at Judar, who turned his head but is still poking the ghost’s leg, “What are you doing here.”

“Hey Hakuryuu,” the demon taps the leg harder, “I was actually just gonna get some more tarts cause those were actually really good but check this out! You can see it, right?”

“Of course I can see it, but no one else can so you’re just looking like a complete idiot right now.” 

“Well that’s just other people being bigger idiots, why should I give a shit?” Judar stops messing with the ghost’s leg anyway. “But what are you doing here? I can’t imagine any black coffee is good enough for a revisit.”

Hakuryuu sighs. “I came here because of this diao si gui that is way too close to where we  _ just _ talked with each other yesterday to be a coincidence. Now tell me, what did you do.”

“I didn’t do jack shit, I like this cafe and its peach tarts. I don’t even know what a diao… diao sin gun is.” Judar frowns. “Why are you suddenly assuming that it has anything to do with me?”

“I don’t know, maybe because a very obviously Chinese ghost suddenly appears at an American cafe, and it happened to be right after a demon hung out in that exact corner of the cafe?” Hakuryuu hisses through his gritted teeth. “These kinds of incidents don’t happen so suddenly, so clearly something is going on here and I can’t think of anyone else who could have started it but you. No one else in that cafe has any ability to instigate this sort of thing.”

“I mean… I guess it could’ve been partially because I was around. Shit tends to happen around me naturally.” Judar shrugs. “But that doesn’t mean I did it on purpose.”

The burning look in Hakuryuu’s eyes suggest that he doesn’t believe it at all. Judar frowns, “Fine, if you think I purposely summoned a weak ass spirit, do you think I’d do this?” He sinks his hand right inside the ghost’s guts with a moist, squelching noise. The diao si gui, which looked like a still corpse this entire time, starts to flail, tongue flinging all over the place and making gargling noises that Hakuryuu couldn’t help but to cringe at, even though he knew that only he and Judar could hear it and they looked like madmen to the rest of the street. Judar, however, is smirking, apparently enjoying the way that the foul creature’s flailing with barely any control of its limbs. He twists his arm and reaches up higher and higher until he grabs at something, and yanks out a mound of black and green flesh and pus. There are orifices at the top and side of the mound, one of which is exuding light green bubbles of some kind of suspicious, probably toxic gas.

Hakuryuu has to cover his nose to keep himself from gagging. “Wh-what in the world is that?”

“Never seen the insides of these things before? And you call yourself an exorcist.” The rope behind them snaps and the diao si gui collapses onto the ground, vanishing into dust on impact. “Then again, if humans like you could do this, then you wouldn’t need all the fancy bells and whistles to deal with these pests, huh.”

“...It’s disgusting.”

“It sure is.” Judar drops the guts onto the ground and shakes his hand in the air, “Eugh, it’s not even worth eating. It’d probably just give me a stomach ache instead. But anyway, why did I do that again…”

Hakuryuu isn’t sure if Judar’s just messing around. Probably is. Everything here is probably just a trivial matter to a demon that could be hundreds or thousands of years old, even if this one in particular acts like he’s five. “You decided the best way to earn my trust was to kill that thing when it really doesn’t change anything.”

“It does change things! It’s gone now! I put my hand inside that sticky, ugly bastard for you!”

“I never said I wanted you to.”

Judar frowns. “Whatever. But you should buy me some more of those peach tarts.”

“Why should I.”

“You still owe me in the thousands.”

He’s technically right. Plus, this isn’t going so well in terms of Hakuryuu’s sloppily thought out “get Judar to lower his guard around me so I can kill him alone” plan that he’s not even sure if he’s committed to yet. He reaches into his wallet and hands out a twenty dollar bill for Judar. “Here, you can buy a good amount with this. I won’t be able to join you though, since I have some business to deal with.”

Judar doesn’t look all that pleased, like he wants more. Whether it’s money or attention, Hakuryuu has no idea. “Fine. It’s not like you can run away from me even if you wanted to.”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t run away from something like you.” Hakuryuu leaves the demon with that and starts to text Alibaba. 

_ Hakuryuu: exorcising the spirit that was responsible for the problem went faster than expected. you can put the table back normally now _

It takes a couple minutes before there’s a response and Hakuryuu uses that time to start walking back home. 

_ Alibaba: already?? :o _

_ Alibaba: that’s great !! ty so much hakuryuu _

_ Hakuryuu: i’ll let you know about payment/other things later in the evening _

Does Hakuryuu even have the grounds to charge Alibaba anything? He didn’t end up doing anything himself besides slap on a talisman to make sure that no one else was going to be cursed from the one table next to the ghost. Yet what is he supposed to tell his classmate, that some demon came by and got rid of the problem for him? He sits down at the nearest bus stop and rubs his right temple with two fingers. He’ll figure this out. He’ll figure out this weird payment situation, and then how to deal with this demon that only seems to want to eat sweets and bother him. 


	4. Chapter 4

_ Hakuryuu: hey _

_ Hakuryuu: i’ll let you off on this one. you don’t need to pay anything. _

He gets a reply almost immediately even though it’s 6am on a Sunday. Alibaba probably has a morning shift.

_ Alibaba: omg really thanks so much man _

_ Hakuryuu: no problem. don’t expect that again if there’s another issue though _

_ Alibaba: ofc :) _

Hakuryuu mutes all of his notifications and doesn’t check them on his phone until after he’s done working out at the gym, came back, and showered. Usually it doesn’t matter anyway since he never really has much reason to get notifications besides some annoying push notifs trying to get him back on some apps, maybe some emails, but this time he reactivated his notifications to see too many text messages for his liking. 

_ Alibaba: sooooo _

_ Alibaba: could you tell me what kind of issue was going on? _

_ Alibaba: was it a curse? ghost? _

_ Alibaba: demon? _

_ Alibaba: you looked like you were busy talkin w someone, was he a coworker _

Hakuryuu brushes his still damp hair and opens the window to let some fresh air in. Alibaba, don’t you have work to do? And suddenly being so explicit about his work through text messages that could be tracked down later is uncomfortable at best. 

_ Hakuryuu: i don’t know what you’re going on about. just talk to me during lunch tomorrow. _

_ Alibaba: kk sure _

That took care of one part of the problem. Hakuryuu made sure to avoid Kouen and Koumei in particular in case they wanted to follow up on the job, though luckily that wasn’t hard to accomplish at all considering that they were busy as usual. For a house filled with so many people, nobody really interacts with each other much outside of work-related purposes. 

Should he just say that the issue resolved itself? No, that’s far too suspicious and they’ll want details of what exactly happened and the last thing Hakuryuu needs is his family suspecting he’s socializing with demons. Just saying that he fixed the issue and decided to let Alibaba go for free because he’s a friend isn’t going to get him anywhere either. Not to mention the fact that he did go to the cafe alone to deal with the issue, with Kougyoku left none the wiser. Maybe he’ll just say that he happened to be in the area, and found out that there was no supernatural origin to whatever the problem at the cafe was. It still sounds a little shaky, but it works. 

_ Alibaba: feel free to come by again!! i work weekends and thur afternoons _

_ Alibaba: i'll treat you :D _

_ Hakuryuu: thanks _

He probably won’t go by there again any time soon. Seeing Alibaba assume that Judar was a coworker already makes Hakuryuu want to groan, and the last thing he wants is for Alibaba to make any further weird assumptions about them. Also, the coffee there isn’t even that good anyway. 

_ Alibaba: and like _

_ Alibaba: lmk if you need any help w anything, yeah? _

_ Hakruyuu: of course _

Maybe he should have charged Alibaba anyway, though that won’t save him from what will likely be a line of questions about the kind of work he does. If he knew that the client was someone he knows, then he would’ve asked Hakuei to cover for him, and he would’ve dealt with the remaining cursed items from the antique store. There’s nothing much he can do about it except anticipate for tomorrow.

The day ends up pretty quiet other than those texts in the morning. Hakuryuu explains to Koumei that he happened to be near the cafe yesterday and found that the issue wasn’t even something supernatural after all, and though he seemed a little disappointed at it, he took the explanation, deleting an entry off of the extensive spreadsheet he uses to keep track of all suspicious incidents. It’s going to mess with the data, but Koumei is smart enough with statistics to be able to find patterns with one less data point. 

Other than that, there wasn’t much else of note. There were chores to do, tests to study for, meals to cook, business-related paperwork to fill out. Hakuren and Kouha were actually there for dinner this time, which makes for much more interesting conversation since they just finished up a job where they had to clear out a small vampire colony’s nest, even if Kouha always sounds like he enjoys this kind of infiltration a little too much. Hakuryuu just pretends not to notice the gleam in his cousin’s eyes as he talks about the way that broken vampire bodies can twist in ways that even butchered up human bodies couldn’t. The sadistic tendencies are a bit off-putting but the actual descriptions don’t ruin his appetite. It doesn’t matter how grotesque they end up, they’re not human after all. 

When Hakuryuu gets back to his room, he sees a familiar face. 

“Hey,” Judar’s sitting at the window, eating on yet another of those peach tarts, “You should’ve stayed down there for just a minute longer so I can snoop around your room.”

“...I’m glad I came here right on time then.” Hakuryuu shuts the door behind him and keeps his voice on the quieter side, “Isn’t that the third day in a row you’re eating those same peach tarts?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“I thought you were here to explore new things.” Hakuryuu takes a seat at his chair. He can’t actually do anything to Judar considering he has nothing prepared, so the best he can do is to stay casual, think about a next move where he can actually have some time to prepare and be active. 

“I’ve tried a lot of flavors last time I was up here.” Judar finishes his current tart and pulls out another one. How many did he get? “Honestly, a lot of food up here just taste bad. It’s gotta suck to actually need to eat food to live.”

“That cafe seemed pretty mediocre overall, though. There’s another bakery not too far off from there that has much better pastries in my opinion.” In literally any other situation, this would sound like he’s asking Judar out on a date. But he’d much rather talk to the demon and get to know the other in a house full of exorcists that would assume the worst about them. “I could show it to you sometime.”

“Oh, trying to get to me through flattery, are you?” The playful tone of his voice goes with a smirk that looks more threatening than flirtatious. 

Hakuryuu coughs. “Of course not. It’s just… you still want me to pay back for you and-”

“So you’ll be treating me again? Sweet, I’m in.”

“Yeah. I’d prefer Thursday but Wednesday could also work.”

Judar leans back, keeping perfect balance even though the window is open and he could fall backwards down two stories at any time. “Eh? But that’s so far away. I’ll just find you sometime tomorrow and then you can show me, yeah?”

“Four days is too long for you?” Hakuryuu rests his arm on his desk. “Aren’t you multiple centuries old? You mentioned being around for the bubonic plague.”

“I mean yeah, but I’m still young and time moves too slow.” Judar swings back to lean in, the hand that isn’t holding a tart is pressing down on the edge of the windowsill. “You look pretty young too. What are you, like, fifty?”

“I’m eighteen.”

“...Fuck.” Judar takes the whole tart in one bite and takes his time to chew on it. “Some humans have so much personality that I forget that they just drop like flies. One century and they’re already gone, like how are you not the one that’s rushed to try everything?”

“Going to a bakery isn’t really that high in my priority list.” Plus Hakuryuu needs time to prepare some kind of plan to weaken or kill this demon. Four days is already far too little time to come up with something satisfactory. 

“Well it should be higher. We’re going there tomorrow. Unless they’re open right now.” 

Hakuryuu glances at the clock. “No, they close early on Sundays. Sorry but you’ll have to wait for an entire day.”

Judar groans. “Fine… tomorrow.” He spits the word out like a kid trying to get rid of a vegetable that’s already in their mouth. “You’re gonna have to buy me extra then.”

Hakuryuu wonders how a demon can be such a brat, or if it’s just a fact people leave out in their demonology books. He tries to pull off his most polite voice anyway. “Yeah. I look forward to going there with you.” 

“You better, I’m not letting you have a choice. See ya.” Judar hops off the window and goes to wherever bored demons go on a Sunday night.

God, he’s such an ungrateful brat. Hakuryuu closes the window as soon as he’s gone and takes a deep breath. The sun has only just set so he at least has the night to try to think of something, otherwise waste an entire moment of interaction on more fluff talk and wasting money on pastries. 

The entire basement is used to store all sorts of supplies - items necessary for rituals that his side of the family mostly uses, weapons that are mostly relegated to his cousins, old books and scrolls for research purposes, stores of dried herbs and other ingredients that look fit for traditional medicine or for poison. There should be something there that he can use, at least experiment with as he figures out exactly what kind of demon Judar is and how to kill the bastard himself. 

Hakuryuu goes down one flight of stairs and turns to go down to the basement when he finds himself looking directly at Hakuyuu.

“What are you doing? Going down to the basement?” Hakuyuu probably doesn’t mean it in a suspicious way, but the oldest brother’s serious tone makes it sound like it. 

“No…” It’d be too suspicious to be going down when technically he should have no reason to look into anything work related at the moment. “I was just going to make myself some tea.”

“Oh, okay.” Seems like it works. “By the way, were you talking with someone earlier? I thought I heard something upstairs.”

“That was just me helping a friend over the phone.” Luckily, Alibaba would be the type to randomly call at moments where he felt like he desperately needed help. Or if he wanted to rant about his relationship issues (or lack thereof), which Hakuryuu hangs up on less than a minute in. 

Hakuyuu nods. Hakuryuu waits until his older brother goes up the stairs and into his room. With silent feet, he sneaks down into the basement. Now downstairs, Hakuryuu goes straight to the room on the left, where there are shelves full of books on three of the walls, and one wall full of different compartments for various herbs, roots, and poisons. He hovers his hand over the row of poisons and pulls one of the compartments open. Dust floats from the abrupt movement, but the inside looks untouched with small individually packed bags of a dark brown powder. He picks up one of them and looks back at the labelling of the compartments. If he remembers his studies correctly, this should either be tasteless and lethal or slightly bitter and harmless depending on the kind of demon that ingests it. The bag is small so it should be easy to slip into a drink if he can nudge Judar into getting some tea, or better yet, coffee. 

Hakuryuu makes sure to rearrange the remaining bags to make it look like one hasn’t just been taken before he closes it and sneaks his way back up, stuffing the small plastic bag of poison in his pocket. He makes himself a cup of tea on the way up too, just in case. As soon as he’s back in his room, he sets the cup of tea aside on the desk and carefully inserts the bag of poison inside a small pocket in his school bag. If it works, fantastic. If it doesn’t, then nothing will happen, and that’s okay, since it’ll just narrow the list of possible ways to kill this demon. 

 

* * *

“Hey Hakuryuu! How’s your weekend been?” Alibaba sits down at one of the tables outside like they always do for lunches on nice days. 

“Busy, as usual.” Hakuryuu opens up the bento he’s packed. Alibaba’s just got a lunch from the school, yet he always ends up beating the line and gets food first.

“Ah, is it because of your uh… part time job?” He clearly still wants to know more, not that it would benefit him in any way besides make him more superstitious. 

“Only marginally,” Hakuryuu shrugs, “I only work as needed. I’m sure that working in food service is a lot more hectic on average.” 

“It’s a little hectic but it’s also pretty fun so far. But it’s pretty normal for a part time job.” 

“My work isn’t necessarily exciting either, it’s just how I was raised.” Hakuryuu eats normally as if Alibaba wasn’t floating around topics of his life he’d rather keep under wraps, at least in school. 

“What? Nah,” Alibaba leans into the table as he eats, “I’m sure you must have a bunch of cool stories about stuff you had to encounter in the past. Like fighting vampires, if… those exist too. Or is it just ghosts?”

“No they exist. So do ghouls, Bloody Mary, and Mothman.” Hakuryuu deadpans. Only the first one actually exists (to his knowledge.)

Alibaba blinks and stares for a moment, but Hakuryuu maintains his expressionless face to let the other’s gullibleness play itself. “Wow, that’s wild. There’s a lot of stuff out there.”

“But problems like that aren’t common. And most of the “exciting” stuff you could think of goes to my older siblings and cousins, so I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“Makes sense,” Alibaba nods, “but it’s great that you have a family that works together so well.”

“...Yeah.” Theoretically speaking. 

They’re silent for a couple minutes before Alibaba speaks up again, “Do you have to be born into the job? Like, are there other people around who do the same thing as you?”

“Well…” It’s kind of complicated to answer. The ability to see spirits and energies is most definitely a birthright, one which is shared by all of his siblings and go back through his parents, grandparents, and so on. His cousins weren’t so lucky, but they’re able to help in many other ways. More than that, however, Hakuryuu's concerned about where Alibaba is going with this line of questioning. He definitely has no reason to be any more involved in these kinds of issues that he already is. 

“Hey.” Hakuryuu looks over at the door. Oh thank god, Morgiana’s here.

“Morgiana!” Alibaba waves at her like he hasn’t seen her in weeks, except that’s just how he greets her every time. The conversation turns over to normal things, and the rest of the school day falls like normal too.

Hakuryuu sneaks the bag of poison in his jacket sleeve while everyone is busy packing up at the end of school.

He doesn’t see Judar until the same bus stop again, only one away from Cafe Noire, and Judar comfortably takes the seat next to Hakuryuu’s without asking because he doesn’t need to ask.

“So, is the place at the next stop?” He’s chewing gum again. For someone who’s out to try new things, he repeats a lot of behaviors out of habit.

“No, it’s closer if we leave at the following stop.” 

“This bus goes so slow though. Maybe we should teleport instead.”

“Can you teleport?”

“Maybe.”

Hakuryuu looks Judar right in the eyes. “Then why haven’t you used it to take us there then?”

“...Thought you’d prefer to take the slow way, since you wanted to be slow about going there in the first place.” So he’s lying. Hakuryuu figured as such. 

The bakery Hakuruyu likes is only a block away from the bus stop and Judar doesn’t make any more complaints about how slow they’re moving. Upon opening the door, they’re welcomed with the scent of fresh bread and a pleasant warmth that must be coming all the way from the ovens in the back. Now this is the sign of a place that makes real bread and pastries. Judar doesn’t seem to notice though, or he just doesn’t care. 

“Pick whatever kind of bread you like.” Hakuryuu isn’t in the mood to have any for himself, even if this place actually does make decent food.

“Oh, that’s easy.” Judar goes straight to the sweets, not even looking at the other breads, and picking out a selection without much thought. More peach tarts, not surprising, but also a slice of strawberry shortcake and some macarons.

“I’ll just get a coffee.” Hakuryuu says once they’re at the counter, “Do you want a drink? I heard the peach tea lemonade is good.”

“Yeah, I’ll take that.” The total comes out to be a lot higher than Hakuryuu had expected, but it’s a small cost for the head of a demon. 

They sit down at a table and Hakuryuu hopes there’s no one living upstairs that has been dealing with suicidal ideation. There’s nothing he can really do to prevent another incident if Judar’s mere existence can affect people floors above him. 

“If you keep going at this rate, you might be able to pay me back in a year.” Judar takes a fork to start eating the piece of cake first, a surprise since Hakuryuu expected him to try comparing the peach tarts first. “Which is really slow, you’re gonna want to pick up the pace before this gets boring.”

“Considering how impatient you are, I’m amazed you’re not bored already.” Hakuryuu glances over at the counter as one of the employees makes the drinks. 

“Honestly? Same.” Judar leans on one of the chair arms, one leg resting on the chair as if he’s allergic to sitting properly. “Even if you’re all stiff and stuff you’re automatically more interesting that most people cause you can actually see things.”

“Coffee and peach tea lemonade for Hakuryuu?” came a voice from the counter.

“Let me get that.” Hakuryuu goes up to the counter, pulling the bag of poison closer to the end of his jacket sleeve as soon as Judar should only be seeing his back. The drinks are in open glasses since they ordered for here so it makes it easier for Hakuryuu to slip just enough of the bag out of the sleeve to open it with one hand and pour the contents into the lemonade. He stuffs the bag back in his sleeve immediately and picks up the tray with the drinks to get a straw from the little station of add-ons, making sure to stir the powder in even though it dissolved upon contact.

He comes back and places the tray on the table with a polite smile. “Sorry, where were we again?”

“About why I still hang out with you, I think.” Judar’s taking his time with this piece of cake. Hakuryuu has no idea if that means he likes it or hates it or somewhere in between. “So there’s you being able to actually see shit. I’m still pissed that you took all my money but I’m not pissed at how you did it, if that makes any sense.”

“So you like a challenge or a disruption, but you’re still a sore loser.” A small smile creeps on Hakuryuu’s face, mostly hidden behind the cup of coffee he’s sipping. 

“If I was a sore loser, you’d be dead.” 

“I mean yes, you could  _ try _ to kill me.”

“You’re real cocky for a human that has okay vision.” Judar pokes a strawberry with his fork. “There’s something a bit different about you from your siblings based on what I saw though. Are you adopted or something? Are you from a different dad?”

Hakuryuu accidentally breathes in his coffee and has to put the cup down before he accidentally spills everything. “Wh-what?” He’s coughing and has to give himself a minute before he can breathe properly again. “...What are you trying to imply?”

“You just... look different.”

“I got burned. That’s what they are. Scars, not genetics.”

“Don’t take me for an idiot, I don’t mean that!” Judar frowns but Hakuryuu shoots him a look of disbelief. “I didn’t mean how you look in the flesh! There’s just. A different vibe about you, a different energy, you know what I mean? What do you people call it, chakras, auras? That shit.”

“What do you know about my family anyway.” 

“Not much, happened to see some of them while getting to your house. But you’re waaaay different from them.” Judar finally eats the strawberry then reaches for the peach tea lemonade and Hakuryuu has to bite his tongue to not look like he’s suspiciously paying attention to the drink. “So much so that you look more like a something masquerading as a family member.” The air of the room thickens and there’s a darkness emanating from Judar as he stirs the straw and looks right into Hakuryuu’s eyes. “So, Hakuryuu, are you human?”

The sheer certainty in Judar’s gaze makes Hakuryuu hesitate. “Of course I am. I always was.” He stares right back.

Judar’s eyebrows furrow for a moment but the fog around him dissolves and the air feels more breathable again. “Huh. Okay. Guess there’s something else off with you.” 

“You’re just… going to leave it like that?”

“Even if you were lying, I don’t have any real proof either way so…” Judar shrugs and finally drinks some of the lemonade. Only to cringe at it and cough. “Eugh, fuck, this drink tastes disgusting what did they put in it?”

Guess the poison is a flop. “I don’t know, I never tried it. Peach juice and lemonade, I suppose.”

“Sure doesn’t taste like it, you try.” Judar pushes the drink towards Hakuryuu but he just pushes it back.

“I don’t want anything you’ve already drunk.”

“Blegh.” Judar takes a couple of bites of cake. “At least the pastries here actually seem good. You’re right, they’re better than the other cafe.”

“Good, there are a lot of good places around if you know where to look and try things out.” Hakuryuu would hate it if Alibaba actually ends up interacting with Judar and think that there’s anything going on. That and of course this is a better place, he knows he has good taste. Now that he knows that the poison is a failure, he’d like nothing better than to just go home and restrategize, but he has to maintain his appearances. And so they talk, and time goes by a little faster than expected. Conversation flows smoother than expected. 

He doesn’t even notice when Kougyoku does a full stop from the street, holding onto too many bags of fabric and other sewing tools, staring at them through the window. 


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey Kougyoku, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

Kougyoku drops her bags of sewing supplies on the couch, on the opposite side where Kouha’s sitting. “Ghosts are real, but I don’t think what I saw was real.” 

“Hm?” Kouha is drinking a glass of champagne he’s having for absolutely no reason besides he wants to. On a Monday afternoon. “What, did you see Hakuyuu take a day off?”

“No, but it’s about as unbelievable - I think I saw Hakuryuu… on a date.”

Kouha spits his drink. “What? No, you must’ve seen something else.”

“You could not mistake Hakuryuu for anyone else in the entire city.” 

“Okay yeah, but are you sure it was a date?” Kouha’s busy cleaning up the spilled champagne and sets his glass on the coffee table. “There was that one time where you thought the same exact thing but it turned out to just be some kind of study session or study date, whatever. And then he got rejected anyway.”

Kougyoku crosses her arms. “There weren’t any books in sight, okay, I got a long hard look at what was going on. He was with this person I’ve never seen before and they were just. Talking. Just spending time chatting. Can you imagine Hakuryuu doing that on a weekday afternoon with anyone?”

Kouha’s expression twists into a grin as he picks up his glass again. “So, tell me what this girl looks like.”

“Well uh, honestly I’m not even sure if that person was a girl?” Kougyoku plays with her sleeves, “They definitely had long hair. Like, really long hair. But I don’t know, otherwise the appearance was pretty androgynous?”

“Huh. Well whatever gender Hakuryuu’s fucking with, what did they look like? Did they look like the super serious, professional type?”

“...No, that’s the other weird part.” Kougyoku sits down at the couch and adjusts her skirt. “The other person looks like a complete wild card. They were dressed all dark and edgy and with a crop top, jewelry, everything. It was pretty far but even then I could see they like to do make up that really stands out. But they kind of pulled it off? Even if some of the jewelry looks a bit old-fashioned…”

Kouha pours himself another glass. “I always knew Hakuryuu was an emo at heart. Guess it just came out through his taste in others.”

“Huh?”

“What, you don’t see it?” He swishes the champagne in his glass.  “He’s all aloof and keeps trying to go lone wolf and leave you behind. And like, just look at his resting face, it has “I have shitloads of teenage angst” written all over it.” 

“I mean, I guess…” She sighs. If Hakuryuu could have his way, she definitely would be left out of everything. And while she’d like to be able to have some initiative in work too, she’s not nearly as useful if the target is something that normal people can’t see. 

“But wow… Hakuryuu doing something rebellious for once…” Kouha’s still grinning, “Did you get anything else about them?”

“No, I just saw them in a cafe from outside,” Kougyoku stands back up and picks up her bags, “If I went in, Hakuryuu would have definitely noticed.”

“True. He’s so secretive.” Kouha pulls out his phone to start typing something with one thumb, casually drinking the champagne with his other hand. 

 

* * *

Hakuryuu’s falling into an unfortunate routine of spending money and wasting time. He and Judar would go to a place that he recommends, he’d test out a new poison in vain, Judar would end up eating a lot of sweets as they talked. Hakuryuu would pretend to write some tasks down on a small notebook, but they’re really notes for what kind of poison or other herbs to try next.  Luckily this hasn’t impeded with his schoolwork and other responsibilities too much since he hasn’t gotten any jobs since that incident in the cafe, but it’s still time that he could spend on literally anything else. Yet he keeps on trying, keeps on talking and sprinkling a sugar-like neurotoxin on the top of Judar’s cupcake. 

But he’s learning more. Hakuryuu can probably predict what Judar will order before they even get to the bakery. If he's so inclined, he could probably bake something up that holds several toxins but mask the flavors so it works perfectly for the demon's tastes. But more importantly he’s starting to get a better idea of Judar’s magic. It’s skewed heavily towards the offensive, and Hakuryuu has a feeling that the illusions and persuasion Judar used for that street con makes up most of the demon's non-offensive capabilities. Of course, there hasn't been any conflicts suddenly leading to buildings getting destroyed, but emotive manifestations of magic are easy to infer from. Little things like their beverages freezing over or flickering lights after a bad comment, sparks of black electricity running through Judar’s fingers when he rambles about something, temperatures sinking when he forgets something and rising back to normal when he brushes it off. Hakuryuu doesn’t how strong that magic could become though, his only clue being the ease with which the other can break into his room.

The eating at different bakeries and cafes helps prevent Judar from coming into Hakuryuu’s room, until today that is.

“Hakuryuuuu,” Judar’s knocking at the window. Hakuryuu gives Judar a good look before going back to his laptop, since it’s not like the demon doesn’t know how to get through. “Hey, let me in.”

The exorcist ignores him until he groans and just opens the window to get inside. “You’re a bitch of a friend, you know that?”

Hard to consider someone you’re trying to poison regularly a friend. “You’ve already broken in twice without a problem. I don’t see why I need to open the door.”

“So that I don’t need to put the extra energy to get in.” Judar’s holding what looks like a handheld console in his hand.

“But you decided to go in anyway.” 

“Well going somewhere else would take even more energy.” He sits down at the extra chair and turns on his game.

Hakuryuu turns to look at him. “...What are you doing here anyway?”

Judar shrugs as the game music starts to play. “I just got this so I wanted to play it. It’s gonna be raining later and through the night, so here I am.”

“Can’t you play it in your own room?” Hakuryuu sighs, going back to his laptop so he can finish his paper.

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

“Don’t have one.” Judar’s leaning with his back against one of the chair’s arms, while his legs hang out the other arm.

Hakuryuu has to look back again, whatever train of thought he has for the paper completely blown away. “What do you mean you don’t have a room? Where have you been staying?”

“I haven’t been staying in any particular place for long.” The video game music is blaring at full volume but Judar tries to move the volume slider up more. “I don’t need to sleep like you, so it’s not like I need a bed or anything.”

“Still, do you just wander around the streets at night then?” He’s not sure whether he should be concerned for Judar or the city. He can’t believe there’s even a moment of indecisiveness. 

“It’s not like I’m just walking all night.” Judar isn’t even looking up so Hakuryuu goes back in an attempt to work, though writing a paper while talking is much harder than playing a game and talking. “There’s bars and clubs and stuff. Sometimes I end up killing a couple spirits on the way too, so I guess that also kills time.” 

There’s no talking for a couple of minutes, only the sound of intermittent typing and game music. “You just sound like you have nothing to do.” Hakuryuu sends the paper to the teacher and looks out the window for a moment.

“Well this place isn’t a battleground or breeding grounds for an epidemic yet.” Judar shrugs. “It’s not that I don’t have anything to do either, I just got a lot of free time in between, y’know.”

“What exactly are you doing then?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you’re trying to do first?” Judar pauses the game and looks straight at Hakuryuu, eyes starting to glow. “Come on, tell me  _ Hakuryuu _ .” The name comes out heavy, weighed down with some old magic. Hakuryuu turns around to look Judar right in the eyes, dim mismatched blues against gleaming red.

Hakuryuu forgets to breathe for a second. Did Judar piece it together? He made sure to include tasteless poisons and would mix up the food or beverage that would get poisoned for the day? Or is he suspicious for other reasons, because an exorcist is willing to talk with a demon for so long, for so often? Was it the manner he spoke in that came off as too artificial, even if there were times when they did slip into natural conversation?

“I’m just trying to do my homework, can’t you see that?” He smiles slightly. 

“Huh?” Judar narrows his eyes. “Have you been going by a fake name all this time? But I heard other people call you by the same thing.”

“I mean... It is a name for me. It is my name if you spell it out properly.” Thanks Chinese for using an iconographic script. There’s all sorts of fae, demons, and even sorcerers and witches that could ruin someone easily with a true name, but no one’s going to figure his out without finding the original characters first. “But it’s just one possible name.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means what it means. It’s a name I go by but not my “true” name. I suppose the same thing goes for you, Judar.” Hakuryuu pulls out a chemistry textbook and some worksheets. “I’d explain more, but I still have more homework.” 

Judar’s eyes dim back to normal, which is still a bright red that looks like a stereotypical demon feature. “Fine. Using that charmspeak stuff is a pain in the ass anyway. Just nagging the information out of you is more interesting.”

Then what was the point of trying it in the first place? Hakuryuu brushes that question out of his mind, no use trying to reason everything that goes in a demon’s mind. At least thermodynamics is actually reasonable, given a little effort. 

Hakuryuu manages to finish the rest of his homework while Judar’s occupied playing games. He looks at the demon, now sitting legs crossed on the chair, but still pretty absorbed in whatever he’s playing. “...How long are you going to stay here?”

No response.

“Judar.”

“Huh, yeah?”

“How long are you going to stay here.”

“Um, probably until I’m either finished with this or get bored of it.” He doesn’t look like he’s going to get bored of it any time soon, and who knows how long it’ll take to complete this game.

“I need to sleep at some point, you know. I’m still human.” It’s only 9pm but it’s best to let Judar know now instead of awkwardly waiting to see if he’ll leave by midnight.

“Are you sure?” Judar grins when Hakuryuu glares at him. “But I mean, that doesn’t really matter. I can still keep playing here while you sleep.”

“You’re not going to stay here overnight.” Hakuryuu gives the best serious expression he can give, and the message gets through.

The demon sighs. “It’s not like you’re actually using the room for anything while you’re sleeping, but fine be that way.” He stretches and readjusts himself such that he’s almost sitting normally on the chair for once, but not quite. “It’s already raining and everything.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage.”

“I’m not a succubus, lillim, incubus, or anything like that, for your information.”

“Good for you. I still don’t want you here overnight.” 

“...Well, what time do you usually go to sleep?” Judar glances at the clock.

“It depends, but usually somewhere between midnight and one.”

“So soon… Okay, I guess I’m just staying until then, I think there’s still a lot more left to this game.” Judar throws his attention back into the game. Hakuryuu’s just going to have to deal with the music and the fighting sound effects. It’s okay though, Hakuryuu’s dealt with noisier things while trying to get things done.

“...What are you playing, anyway?” 

“Uh. Poke mon.”

It’s hard not to laugh at that so Hakuryuu laughs at it anyway. “It’s pronounced Pokemon, you know.”

“Oh, guess that’s why they put the little line on the “e” there.”

Hakuryuu turns back to his desk and stares at it for a moment. Originally he was planning to hurry up with schoolwork so he could do a bit more research, maybe look into some of the older books in the basement to see what he can dig up. Clearly he can’t do that now since Judar is literally right here and he also doesn’t want to leave a demon unsupervised in his room for a single second in case that was exactly what the other was waiting for. He reviews his history flashcards for a while before it was obvious that he wasn’t going to learn anything more from them since he’s already gone over the information so many times. It’s still not even ten yet. He could pretend he’s going to sleep early, but Judar might check back to see that he’s awake, so that isn’t worth the risk. Instead he rolls his chair next to Judar and sits down again, peering over at the screen.

“How far are you?”

“I just got through the second gym, heading to the third place right now.”

“And you said you were going to stay here until you’re finished?” Hakuryuu chuckles. “You’ve barely started.”

“Hey, you don’t know that!”

“Yes I do, every game has eight gyms and has an obligatory extended storyline before the last one. Did you even read the dialogue?”

“Didn’t bother after learning status ailments and type advantages.” Judar runs right into a trainer battle he could have easily sneaked around if he walked. Hakuryuu would occasionally point out different tips he could gather from his vague memories of playing the game when he was little. They didn’t help much. 

And to Judar’s disappointment, he still ended up getting kicked out around a quarter before midnight.

 

* * *

“Good morning, Hakuryuu!” 

“...Good morning, Kougyoku.” Hakuryuu would try to sound a bit nicer but it’s impossible without coffee. Luckily it looks like his cousin’s already brewing some. “You’re up early.”

“Y-yeah, what a coincidence we’re getting ready at the same time, right?” She eats her parfait slowly while waiting for the coffee. “How have you been?”

Hakuryuu grabs some rice to reheat in the microwave. There’s plenty of stew left from yesterday so he starts reheating that in the stove too. “I’ve been alright.” He pours a cup for both of them when the coffee machine finishes. 

“Thanks,” Kougyoku takes her cup and goes to add concerning amounts of sugar and creamer, “Ah, is that so… You’ve seemed a bit… busy recently? As in, busier than you usually are, which is a lot.” She’s only making herself sound more awkward.

“Not really.” Hakuryuu takes a sip of black coffee and stares blankly at the stove while the stew reheats.

“Really?” Kougyoku takes a gulp of coffee when she realizes she sounds too surprised. “Oh I just thought you’ve been coming in a bit later. I guess you’re just studying in libraries and cafes more often?” 

“No.” He puts his cup of coffee on the dining table and gets a bowl to pour some stew in. It doesn’t take long before he’s got his breakfast on the table. “...It’s just not that bad when there’s no family work to also juggle.” He starts eating slowly, the coffee still needs a little more time before it can kick in. 

“Yeah.” Kougyoku finishes her parfait and stares at her cup for a moment. “Um…”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s going wrong! Things are going well, actually!” Hakuryuu’s too tired to figure out what’s going on in her head. He’s taking his time with his breakfast but Kougyoku is still sitting there on the other side of the dining table, hands wrapped around her pink coffee mug, barely drinking any of it.

“Okay, what’s going on.”

Kougyoku jumps in her seat. “Huh? Well um. Nothing really…” She takes a long sip of coffee, “Oh, by the way, I thought I saw you at a bakery the other day.”

Hakuryuu stops mid-sip and almost burns his mouth with coffee. “....No you didn’t. I haven’t been to any bakeries in months.”

She smiles nervously, the type where the lips curl up because they don’t know what else to do. “O-oh, okay um. I mean, I only saw the right side and it was far away so I guess I could’ve mistook you for someone else, sorry.” Kougyoku only saw his scarred left side then, but she doesn’t know how else to stop this before potentially going too far and too awkward. She picks up her mostly full coffee mug and excuses herself. 

Hakuryuu presses his fingers to his temples.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a little shorter than the others but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ there'll be more
> 
> also i thought it was interesting how the kanji of hakuryuu's name is an actual chinese name (bailong), even though since magi is japanese yknow they chose a japanese pronunciation. it made me think like, well technically isnt this the wrong name then or how else could i play around with it. so there's that, a fake but not-fake name


	6. Chapter 6

Hakuryuu’s getting too carefree. Taking Judar to various bakeries and cafes was bound to lead to someone spotting them, even if they went around to all sorts of different districts in the city. He’s barely dodged a bullet considering Kougyoku was the one who spotted them unlike any of his siblings, who would recognize that Judar is a demon at a glance. At least the most the girl would suspect is a relationship, which albeit unfortunate, is nothing compared to if the family knew that he was acting friendly with what’s basically their sworn enemy. 

If either his siblings or his cousins did find out that would be the end of him, no question about it. It doesn’t matter if he was continually trying to kill Judar, the risk of continuously interacting with a demon was punishable enough. Hakuryuu’s so distracted with the thoughts running through his head that he barely notices when he walks through a cloud of dark fog. He stops and looks back after he passes it, the remnants of the fog prickling his eyes. It looks like it’s coming from the alleyway, with small sparks of lightning occasionally fluttering through the particles. 

Is this Judar’s work? It’s hard to believe it could be from anyone or anything else, and it has that trademark electricity that he’s so fond of using. Hakuryuu’s jaw clenches. He has no idea why Judar might be doing this, yet creatures like him always had a capricious nature deep inside. Hakuryuu keeps the short sword hidden in a secret pocket close at hand, just in case. Even if it’s not Judar, he’ll have to take a peek inside to know what he’s going to deal with. 

Hakuryuu starts walking inside, slowly pulling out the short sword and keeping a firm grip on it with one hand. There’s a thick black smog halfway in, something which likely looks like a normal end of an alley with litter and brick to the average individual’s eyes. But this level of smog means Judar must be trying to hide something from him and other mediums too. Even when he tries to fully focus his attention, his eyes can’t perceive the way they normally can. So he takes one more step, still nothing. One more step then. Nothing. Just thick smog and a twisting feeling in his gut as he thinks, he should have taken a bolder action from the start to kill the demon, even if that demon just likes to waste time and eat peach tarts. 

He’s standing at the edge of the smog now, close enough that he could accidentally breathe it in if he inhales too much. And yet it’s impossible to see through and Hakuryuu can’t even tell how deep the smog goes. Hakuryuu presses a button at the hilt of the short sword and the handle extends down to his feet to make a guandao. Not the best weapon in public locations, but it was always the way he preferred to fight.  Could Judar really have done this? He doesn’t seem the type to know how to obscure things so well. 

But how much does he really know Judar in the first place? Chances are that’s not even the demon’s real name, that’s why he could never find the other in the piles of books he’s dug through. Hakuryuu takes a deep breath facing away from the smog. Should he just get his brothers instead? 

And watch them keep him in the home like a child while they do everything themselves again?

He steps in.

There’s no way to predict how long he would need to walk in order to see again, but within a couple steps Hakuryuu comes out the other side. Snakes. Dark green snakes, small ones and large ones the size of ball pythons, slithering over each other in a pile, paying no mind to the sudden human intrusion. There is one demon he could immediately recognize as the snakes’ master, staring at something on the brick wall. 

A garden snake slithers towards Hakuryuu. He cuts its head off before it can do anything.

“That’s quite rude of you.” The demon doesn’t turn its head but all of the snakes do, in unison. “I was going to let you go if you just turned back without a word. But mediums like you always want to see more.”

It’s clear it’s already too late to turn back. “What are you here for.”

“I was just trying to look for someone. An ex-colleague, so to speak.” The demon brushes its hand over whatever it was looking at on the brick wall and turns to face Hakuryuu. Its face is almost completely concealed between the turban, masquerade mask, and the cloth covering its face from the mouth down. “But you’ve killed one of my familiars.”

“I can bring you down with it if you like.” 

“I’d like to see you try.” Snakes started to dart at Hakuryuu from every direction and it’s becoming clear that there are far more than the pile at the end of the alleyway. There’s a thump on the ground, and another. Pythons are falling right in front of him, but also behind him, all around as if someone shook out a whole jungle of them from the sky. Individually they’re easy to handle, just a single, well-timed cut away from death. One snake is easy, seven snakes are easy. Whatever amount this demon is sending in, wave after wave, is not easy. It’s only a matter of time before one of them gets to him, and who knows what kind of curse or venom may be lurking in their fangs. 

“Shit-” It’s too late. There’s an unmistakable stinging on the back of Hakuryuu’s right leg. He swings his guandao and jabs it right on the biting snake’s throat but that only opens him up to another bite on his left arm. The one on his arm won’t come off as easily and there are more serpents approaching, as if Hakuryuu hadn’t made a scratch in the mob. 

A wave of heat flashes through his body, yet his limbs are shivering. Or rather, the whole world shivers with him. The grip on the guandao remains solid, but the swings are slowing, and here and there more fangs find a way to sink into his skin, injecting fire that dances inside the veins. Whatever venom’s being injected in him is playing with him, yet Hakuryuu finds a way to keep moving forward, stepping closer to the demon at the end of the alleyway, if only out of sheer stubbornness. How is he going to deal with the demon once he gets there? The corners of his vision are starting to blacken and it’s hard to think but he has to do something, he has to keep fighting somehow. 

The crackling of thunder stops everything, piles of snakes and Hakuryuu included. Daggers shoot down from the sky, one hitting a snake that was lodged in Hakuryuu’s left shoulder, another going straight at the back of the demon’s neck, stopped only by a force field that appeared just in time around its body. 

The demon turns around, unpleased glint in its eyes. “You brought back up, I see. Pathetic, though you look like you can’t even handle a Lillim by yourself.”

Hakuryuu wants to say something but his tongue feels heavy, swollen, possibly a side effect of the poison that’s been making everything spin. 

Three more daggers fly directly into the force field, creaking the smallest crack upon impact. There’s a figure at the top of the building, cloaked under shadow. It drops down to the ground, feet landing right on top of two snakes’ heads. 

“This person has nothing to do with this. You’ll have to deal with me first.” Either the sun is setting faster than expected or Hakuryuu’s vision is darkening. The face of the other exorcist is covered with a green shawl, which only makes the shock of white hair stand out more. 

“...You again,” The demon sighs and makes a swirling motion with the scythe it’s holding. Snakes start to slither backwards to the weapon, getting absorbed into it. “I don’t want to deal with you right now, I’m just trying to find one of my brethren.”

“Then what are you doing trying to kill a human.”

“This child was interrupting my work.” It doesn’t even bother to look at Hakuryuu’s direction. “But it’s been taking too much time already.” The demon sits on its scythe and starts to fly off. The other exorcist tries to throw daggers with strings attached to it but the strings only burned off upon contact with the scythe. 

The demon looks down on both of them when it reaches a height neither could reach. “I hope we never meet again.” And so it flew off. 

“Again…” The exorcist hisses under his breath but rushes to Hakuryuu’s side. “Are you okay? Did you get cursed?”

The hands that grip onto Hakuryuu are cold enough to shock him back to attention. “...There’s some sort of poison, I can feel that much… Curses shouldn’t be a problem though.” 

“That’s nonsense.” The exorcist takes a better look at his face. “...Are you one of the Rens? I think I’ve heard of you, you’re the youngest one, right?”

Hakuryuu nods.

“I’m from the Sindria Company. Where’s your house, I’ll help you back-”

“I’ll be fine.” He’s not fine at all. But he can’t just waltz in with someone from Sindria holding him step by step. “I can get there by myself.” He forces himself to take a couple steps forward, brushing the other’s hands away. The guandao will look suspicious to anyone that might see him on the streets, but he’s not sure if he can go without using it like a walking stick. 

“You have to be out of your mind.” The exorcist huffs, walking forward an extra couple of steps to make sure he sees Hakuryuu get out of the alleyway without collapsing.

“Something like this… can be easily fixed.” His whole body feels like it’s pulsing out of control. “It won’t take me long to get there. You should be going after the demon.”

“But you’re hurt.”

“It’s not like I don’t have legs.” 

“...If you’re so insistent on looking tough.” The other reaches into his pocket and hands a small bottle to Hakuryuu. “This should slow down whatever poison is affecting you. Take care now.” He runs off, leaving Hakuryuu to take the slow march home by himself. 

Hakuryuu waits until the person is completely out of sight before walking again, the last thing they need is someone from that suspicious business to know where he lives. Seeing him here already gives them too much information, which he’ll have to deal with once he’s recovered and dealing with the brunt of Hakuyuu’s concerns. But for now, he has to get back. Step by step, his legs only feel hotter and weaker, like the next step would turn his calves into a molten jelly. It’s only two blocks away and luckily there are barely any people around outside (either that or he’s so far gone that he can’t notice anything besides the ground that keeps inviting him.) 

He gets to the door but he can’t get his fingers to wrap around the keys properly, so he leans against the door instead as he pushes the doorbell with his knuckles. Everything’s melting, inyo a black inky substance. He thinks he hears the sound of something unlocking and looks up to see his sister’s face floating in a black canvas before the paint swallows her up too.

 

* * *

 

“-kuryuu, Hakuryuu can you hear me?”

Something cold is pressing on his forehead. He’d pull it closer if his arms existed. He opens his eyes and finds that they’re still there despite feeling like they’ve floated away. His sister and brothers are all around him too. Hakuei is gripping his hand with a force that he should feel while Hakuren and Hakuyuu are busy grinding herbs together in a mortar and pestle. 

“You’re awake, thank god!” Hakuei tightens the grip on his hand and rolls up his sleeve to get a better look at the bite marks scattered all over it. Hakuryuu’s not sure whether he’s seeing things or if there really is pus leaking out of them.

“...Sister,” He blinks and the world’s spinning again. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry…”

“You are not fine at all.” Hakuyuu presses a cloth doused in some salve and presses it against one of the snake bites on Hakuryuu’s leg. “What were you thinking, going straight towards a demon like that? You didn’t even have Kougyoku with you, and even then you should have gone and told us first.”

“I thought it was Ju-” Hakuryuu coughs, “I thought I could investigate it a little before deciding what to do next… I didn’t expect that there would be so much.”

“You, you didn’t expect there would be so much, are you hearing yourself right now?” Hakuyuu’s pressing too tightly on the wound and the salve is dripping down the side of his right calf.

“He literally just woke up, let’s just deal with this first.” Hakuren’s applying salve on the other side. Hakuei keeps one hand on Hakuryuu’s while getting some of the salve to apply on his arm.

Hakuyuu sighs. “You clearly weren’t thinking properly when you decided to go in.”

There’s a silence weighing down on them as the three siblings treat their youngest one. Hakuryuu knows the proper response is to apologize, to blame his foolishness for causing this to happen, and if it were any other incident he would swallow his pride and force himself to say it anyway. Yet this time he couldn’t. He excuses it to himself by thinking that his tongue is still swollen, regardless of the fact that he was talking almost normally just minutes before. Nobody was demanding an apology explicitly either, it’s something that can be neglected for a couple more minutes, just enough until Hakuryuu can walk again.

Hakuei is hovering a ceremonial staff over Hakuryuu’s body, her eyes a shade lighter than they usually are. “...There’s a curse still inside him but it’s weakening. It’s mostly centered on his shoulder, right at this pressure point.” She points at it with the staff. 

“I’ll deal with that.” Hakuyuu puts the damp cloth away and his fingers are weaving against each other between multiple positions before slowly pushing his thumbs down on the point. Hakuryuu winces and bites his lip, but otherwise doesn’t dare make a sound. The last thing he wants is another crying incident.

“You’re lucky you’re so resistant to curses.” Hakuyuu sighs. He most likely thinks that it’s a double edged sword, probably believes that’s why Hakuryuu is so “reckless.” It doesn’t matter what he says to his oldest brother otherwise. “If this was any normal person, their soul would have rotted already.” The thumbs relieve the pressure for just a small moment before jabbing into the point again and Hakuryuu can’t help but groan, biting the lip deeper until it bleeds.

“You’re really something else, Ryuu.” Hakuren watches as Hakuyuu keeps working at the point, watching the curse slowly get expelled. “How did you even get out like this? Did you defeat it?”

Hakuryuu shakes his head, teeth still fixed on his bottom lip. 

“So it’s still out there…” Hakuei wipes the sweat off Hakuryuu’s forehead with a towel. “But what's important is that you're alive. I'm so glad you made it to the door...”

“Yeah.” Hakuren’s going from applying the salve to bandaging the legs now. “I hope you remember how the demon looks. We’re going to need every detail to track it down. Fuck, this chance encounter might’ve been exactly what we needed. This demon might even be the source behind all the ruckus that’s been happening lately.”

Hakuryuu forces himself to stop biting his lip and takes a deep breath. “...I don’t know about that.”

“Hm?” Hakuren cuts off the bandage after it’s been properly wrapped.

“Of course it’s not, we’ll need you to stay here until everything’s been cleared out.” says Hakuyuu, “Don’t try to turn this into some kind of opportunity, Ren.”

“What, that’s not what I’m trying to do-”

“That demon was looking for another one of its kind.” Hakuryuu tried to speak the loudest that he can, which isn’t particularly impressive considering how scratchy his throat is. “It could be that one… There was an exorcist too.”

Hakuyuu’s hands stop and Hakuryuu feels like he can finally breathe properly. “What do you mean? You mean one of Sinbad’s men?”

“Yeah…” Hakuryuu looks up at the ceiling, trying to remember. “He said he was from the Sindria company. Didn’t give his name, but he was wearing green and used daggers.”

“Probably Ja’far.” Hakuren frowns, “You see that guy everywhere, he’s practically Sinbad’s personal lap dog.”

“And hunting hound.” adds Hakuyuu. He goes back to expelling the curse out of Hakuryuu’s shoulder. “But they came this close to our house. This is almost as big of a concern as the demon itself.” In the few instances where there are competing businesses, they tend to negotiate different “hunting grounds” in order to prevent competition and suspicious underhanded practices. 

“Guess that’s another item on the to-do list.” Hakuren shrugs, pretending to look relatively nonchalant about it though the way that wrinkles appear on his forehead says otherwise. “I can reach out to Ja’far after this. Or maybe Kouen or Koumei has time for a business call.”

Hakuyuu presses one more time before letting Hakuryuu’s shoulder go and the body part falls limp on the bed. “You should do that as soon as possible. Who knows what else Ja’far and Sinbad might be planning.” 

Hakuei goes back with the staff and takes a thorough look at Hakuryuu. “...I think he’s okay now. It doesn't look like there's any other curses.” She looks at him in the eyes now. “Do you need anything? I could go make you something to eat.”

Please don’t. “You.. don’t need to. Just water’s fine.” 

Hakuei does get him some water but couldn’t stay for long because a politician had requested her for some spirit channelling business. Hakuren tries to stick around, if only because he thought Hakuyuu would practically smother the youngest sibling with worry, but eventually he gets a call from Kouha and has to excuse himself. 

“...How are you feeling now?” asks Hakuyuu.

“Much better.” Hakuryuu sits up on his bed to drink some more water. “Thanks for healing me.”

“Of course, we’re family after all.” And the only ones who could understand each other, who could see the same things and experience life at the margins of what feels like the real and unreal. “I know that… you don’t like to be babied but you really do need to take better caution. Who knows what could have happened if you were just a couple blocks further from home and we couldn’t deal with all those curses in time?”

“...I know.” Hakuryuu forces himself to say. He washes down the icky feeling in his throat with water. “But I should be okay now. I’ll be careful in the streets and make sure to report anything suspicious.”

Hakuyuu stares at him for a moment. “Do you think you’ll be going back to school tomorrow?”

“I mean, I have to.”

“...Don’t.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

Hakuyuu holds his hands together and looks out the window. “I don’t think that it would be a good idea for you to leave when your body’s still vulnerable. You have good resistances but that doesn’t make you immune, Ryuu.”

“I think I can manage to get back and forth from school fairly easily.” It’s a good thing Hakuei gave him a glass of water instead of a bottle because otherwise the crinkling of the plastic would give him away. 

“You were supposed to come back from school directly yet look what you got yourself into.”

“Like I would repeat the same mistake again-”

“I know.” Hakuyuu huffs. “But still. I think it would be best if you gave yourself a couple days of recovery. At least inside we’re protected - nothing should be able to break in.”

That’s not true, but that doesn’t matter. “...How many days.”

“I think we should wait until the beginning of next week. It’s Wednesday so it shouldn’t be that bad, right?”

“That’s two whole days in a row.”

From the look in his eyes, Hakuyuu’s patience is starting to wear thin. “So you’d rather go to school? Where everyone’s going to be questioning why you have snake bites and bandages all over? At least if you wait until Monday, your wounds should be mostly healed and you can just say you caught a cold.”

“...I’ll stay home tomorrow, but I won’t guarantee anything about Friday.”

“Fine.” Hakuyuu looks at the clock and gets up. “If you have this much energy, I’m sure you’re fine being here by yourself. If you need anything, just call any of us, okay? I know none of us can compare to your cooking skills so you can order in anything you’d like.”

“Okay, I will.” 

Hakuyuu leaves and Hakuryuu’s left with an uncomfortable silence. He breaks it with music and ordering delivery, but it doesn’t do much for the sinking pit of his stomach. He’s fine with putting up with it until the food arrives, and he hears a knock on the window just as he’s starting to dig into the food he just ordered. 

Hakuryuu doesn’t reply. Judar doesn’t need one to enter the room through the window, box of cake in hand. 

“Wow. You look like you had a fight with some rabid animal and it won.”

“...That’s not too far from what actually happened.”

“So you meddle in animal affairs too?” Judar sits on the chair and starts eating the cake that’s obviously meant for just himself. “What’d you do, find some tiger that was doing some underhanded day trading?"

“There was a demon in an alleyway not too far from here.” Hakuryuu starts eating his own food slowly. There’s something about getting bitten countless times that ruins an appetite. “I thought it might have been you, so I sneaked in but it turned out to be a different one that appeared to be looking for someone.”

“Hm.” Judar frowns. “What did they look like?”

“The face was mostly covered up, all you can see are the eyes and part of the nose. Other than that it seemed to have olive hair sticking out.” 

“Fuck.”

“What is it? Do you know them?”

“It’s probably Ithnan, the motherfucker.” Judar groans and stabs the current piece of cake he’s been eating. “Snake eyed cocky bastard.”

“How do you know them?”

“More like how could I not?” Judar leans back on his chair. “He’s one of those fuckers that’s real deep in Hell’s current politics, has been since the very first day. Annoying as fuck.”

“He said he was looking for someone.”

“...Isn’t he always.”

Hakuryuu just keeps eating instead, forcing every bite down because it’s already 8pm and he shouldn’t be eating this late but he can’t just skip a meal either in this condition. 

“So did you have a draw against him or something?” asks Judar. “You sure don’t look like you won, but like, you’re also still alive.”

“I was interrupted by someone else who stepped in. They’re probably still chasing after him right now.”

“So you were saved.”

“...Maybe.”

Judar cuts another slice of cake for himself. “That sucks. You look like you could be a lot stronger than him if you tried.”

“Flattery’s not going to get you any of my food.” The demon looks like he lives purely off of sweets, though. 

“I never said I wanted any of it in the first place.” Judar crosses his legs and leans against one arm of the chair. “But really, I think that you do have a lot of fighting potential in you. It’s easy to see. Too bad you’re just sitting in bed wasting your time.”

“I don’t want to hear that from someone like you.” 

“Well that’s because I don’t need to build up any potential. I’m not some baby exorcist.” 

Hakuryuu can’t get himself to reply, so Judar keeps going. “Ithnan is pretty squishy if you can get passed all of the snakes. But he also has a way of producing copies of himself through those snakes, which is why he won’t just die already.”

“...He can make clones of himself with the snakes? How so?”

“Dunno. If I knew, I would’ve killed him by now.”

Hakuryuu sighs. “Do you have any other demons you’re on bad terms with that I should know about? I don’t want to see Ithnan or anyone else try to come into this house looking for you.”

Judar pouts. “Hey, you don’t know if he’s looking for me specifically.”

“I don’t know what other demon is around to fit the bill so for all intents and purposes I’m going to assume you’re his target.” Judar looks annoyed but Hakuryuu’s not going to let that keep him from having his food. “But you’re giving this kind of information rather freely.”

“You’re an exorcist and medium, you’d have some actual use for it.”

“I don’t see why you’d want to help me at all, considering you still want your money back.”

Judar looks at Hakuryuu for a moment, and then shrugs. “If you happened to get rid of Ithnan, it’d be one less bastard for me to deal with.” 

Hakuryuu wonders if it’s really all that simple. “...If that’s what you say.” 


	7. Chapter 7

“Let me guess, your little chat with Ryuu went horribly.” Hakuren doesn’t need to look up from his social media feed, the sigh and the footsteps down the stairs are more than what he needs to know that Hakuyuu’s here. 

“Yeah, I ended up being too stiff again.”

“You tend to do that.” Hakuren puts his phone away. “Kouha told me that he had a run in with one of Sinbad’s other lackeys. They claimed that the prey they were chasing ended up going to our territory.”

“As if. That one woman in their group has a top-tier binding barrier.” 

“Same, that’s exactly what I thought.” 

Hakuyuu walks to his office while Hakuren follows along. “Did the person Kouha see seem like Ja’far?”

“Nah, the description he gave sounded completely different. Plus, Kouha knows what most of the people look like. Guess it must be someone new, an apprentice maybe.”

“Someone new.” Hakuyuu repeats. “Sinbad needs to learn to keep his problems to himself.”

“It’s really looking like he’s starting to expand his business again.”

Hakuyuu rubs his temples with his fingers. “It really does. But this isn’t enough evidence for us to take any action. Even if we did have enough evidence, it would be hard to find a way to settle this diplomatically.”

Hakuren stares at the empty surface of the desk. “...If things end up escalating into a fight, know that all of us are willing to do what we can.”

Hakuyuu’s still facing down, fingers pressed. “Don’t say it like that. I don’t want anything to be jinxed. We’ll just have to be more cautious with our interactions with them, understand?”

“...Yeah. Kouen told me he’ll be coming back in like twenty minutes, I’ll tell him about this then.” Hakuren pats his older brother on the shoulder and leaves him be in the office.

 

* * *

_ Alibaba: hey u doing alright? _

_ Hakuryuu: just a little sick _

_ Alibaba: D: _

_ Alibaba: must be terrible if you're not here _

_ Alibaba: get better soon! _

_ Hakuryuu: thanks _

It’s a simple interaction, a show of genuine concern, of care. Hakuryuu shouldn’t want to throw the phone to the other side of the room. And yet the more he thinks about it, the more anger piles up in his throat, clogging up like mucus ready to be coughed out at any time. It doesn’t make sense to be angry. He’s not angry at Alibaba, at the small text conversation that has very little meaning in the end, he’s just angry at his situation. For being stuck here, for being unable to do anything besides get bitten multiple times and almost dying of poison. For being coddled again, like some child that can’t walk around town safely. 

And of course, it’s in irritating times like these that Judar comes to visit.

“What do you want.” A lock of hair falls out of Hakuryuu’s messy bun.

“I wanted that weird spicy peach lemonade we got that one time last week but wow you sure look like a mess.” Judar sits on Hakuryuu’s chair and kicks his feet up on the desk. “You look really pouty for someone who got a free day off.”

“I’d hardly call this a vacation.” He gets up from the bed even though his legs protest. “Do you just want me to give you money to buy a drink?” He hopes not - the drink was only spicy that one time because of the particular poison he was using that day. He can’t exactly bring a packet of it and tell Judar to add it into the beverage.

“Nah, I figured I could just drag your lifeless body there.” 

“If you’re going to joke around you should just leave instead.” 

“You’re crankier than usual.” Well it doesn’t help that Judar has his bare feet on his desk, and from what Hakuryuu has seen, the demon just refuses to wear shoes. 

“Get out, I don’t have the patience for this.”

“So that you can do what, sit in your bed and make yourself angrier while staring off into space?” Judar crosses his arms. “You’ll have plenty of time to do that when you’re burning in hell.” 

Hakuryuu pushes the chair, making Judar lose his balance and fall on the ground. “I thought I told you to get out.” Honestly, there are much more civil ways of trying to persuade someone to leave his room, but he can’t get himself to care about adding a polite layer to his speech. 

“Ow, is that how you treat the only person that could possibly help you kill Ithnan?” Judar sits up on the carpet instead. 

Hakuryuu narrows his eyes. “How could you possibly help me anyway? The advice you gave was sparse at best.”

“I might not know his exact weakness right now, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never find out.” 

“If you’re so confident, can’t you just figure it out by yourself? Or are you going to connect this to me “repaying” you back somehow?”

Judar looks up at him from the ground, and there’s something satisfying about seeing a demon looking up at him like this when he was humiliated only the other day. “Well…” Judar tilts his head to the side ever so slightly. “I guess you could count that as a form of payment. Ithnan has been up my ass for centuries, and not in a fun way.”

“And you’re willing to work with me? Shouldn’t you go for someone else like another demon? You see the state I’m in right now.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot better than most humans who get on his bad side. And leagues better than the humans that get on his good side.” Judar leans back, hands resting on the ground. “He’s one of those demons that likes to make contracts left and right, and everyone who’s dumb enough to fall for them ends up in a sorry state by the end. That’s what they deserve, for making an agreement with a bitch like that.”

“Does he have humans contractually bound to him at the moment?” Hakuryuu winces when there’s a spike of pain in his arm, and he starts rubbing a little above the snake bites. It’ll take longer to get back into archery club practice than he expected. 

“Not right now, I don’t think.” Judar shrugs. “It’s pretty obvious when there are people though, but there hasn’t been any revolutions or terrorist attacks around here, so it should be fine.”

Hakuryuu looks up and down Judar. He doesn’t have nearly as menacing of an aura as that Ithnan did when he saw the demon inside the alleyway. In fact, Judar looks like someone you don’t need to take seriously at all, and that just makes Hakuryuu all the more uneasy. All the more frustrated. A passing thought in his head asks how well Judar would be able to guard himself in a sudden attack, if Hakuryuu is in a proper state to fight. He shouldn’t be thinking about that,  but that doesn’t do anything to regulate his thoughts. 

“...Either way, I’m not able to do anything right now. Get back to me about this after I recover.” 

“Eugh, but you’re gonna take forever to recover.” Judar gets up anyway. “Fine. It’s not like any of those other exorcists are going to get Ithnan’s head on a platter by then.” He leans back against the window until he falls out. Always the dramatic one. 

Hakuryuu shouldn’t be so angry. Irritated, sure, as the demon still barges into his room frequently as if it were a commons instead of a private bedroom, but it’s simmered down to a mild annoyance as of late, like finding that a cat has decided to rest on the keyboard when he needs to use the computer for work. A mild irritation that doesn’t last long, that’s what these visits are, but right now Hakuryuu finds himself biting his tongue.

The sharp pain is back on his arm and Hakuryuu has to hold it down as he paces around the room. He can’t stay in bed, even if his legs might be begging him to stop. Just laying there feels like watching himself rot. He can’t go to the gym in this state, so he goes to the bathroom to wash his face so he can work on catching up in school afterwards. The material shouldn’t be too hard, just a little memorization heavy. Enough that he can distract himself from whatever bitchy mood he’s gotten himself in. 

He looks up at the mirror after rinsing his face and for a split second he’s greeted only with a shadow. He stares at the nondescript figure on the other side, but it disappears after he blinks, returning to a reflection of himself staring too intensely. 

Something’s not right. Hakuryuu sits down on the chair and starts unwrapping the bandages on his left arm, since it’s been the most erratic all day. Four pairs of snake bites are peppered down his lower arm, blooming purple and blue splash marks on the surrounding skin. If he squeezes around one of the bite marks, pus comes out. He wipes it off with a tissue and tries to take a closer look. Sure, there are small dark lines around the bites that indicate that it had come from a supernatural serpent rather than the type you’d find in the wild, but there’s nothing that shows a curse or anything of the sort. There’s no way there’s anything there. Even if a demon could mask themselves to look more benign, it’s nigh impossible to cloak any actual magic used, since by nature it disrupts the flow of energy in between the natural and supernatural realms. 

It must be the staying cooped in the room. Hakuryuu wraps the bandages back around the arm. There’s no way anyone in his family is going to let him outside, but the least he should be able to do is go down to the kitchen and make something, do something with his hands that could distract him and make him feel productive. 

* * *

“Do we know anything else about this demon?” Koumei’s busy typing up notes and flipping through tabs of various demonology databases.

“You’re not going to find anything worth reading online about this.” says Hakuyuu, “but no, Hakuryuu never got the name of the demon, only a physical description and the use of snakes. It also seemed like Ja’far has been targeting it, at least earlier that day. So it most likely has been stirring up trouble in their territory.”

“It certainly makes a mess out of all the other data points we have.” Koumei sighs, looking at all the calculations. “I think we can safely say this is an anomaly rather than a potential cause.”

“So there’s more than one out there?” Kouha makes a twisted smile, “Nice, I always wanted to face one head on. Hakuryuu got lucky.”

“Don’t be reckless.” says Kouen. “This is clearly isn’t a normal demon. We don’t need any more casualties than necessary.”

Kouha pouts. “Like I’d get hurt as easily.” 

“You still have that gash on your leg from the last job we did.” Hakuren hides a smirk by drinking from a glass. “You get way too into the slaughtering part.”

“Like you don’t either.” 

“Hey I’m not a full out sadist like you-”

“Anyway.” Kouen clears his throat. “I called Sinbad earlier, or rather, Ja’far. He said that both incidents were jobs that started in their territory and ran off to ours and wouldn’t give any more details.”

“There’s no way.” Hakuren crosses his arms. “Not with that barrier they have. Either that woman skipped town or they’re so overwhelmed with work that things are slipping out.” 

“I could investigate the area.” Hakuei offers. “I have some business over there anyway, not relating to this.”

“Don’t do anything unnecessary there, understood?” says Hakuyuu. “They’ll definitely be suspicious of you if they spot you in the area. Just carry on with whatever you need to do and just let us know if you notice anything on the way.”

Hakuei nods. Kougyoku is sitting on the opposite side of her, fumbling with her sleeves. If Hakuryuu was in good condition, she could at least attempt to volunteer for something, anything really. There’s too much suspicious activity going on to just focus on her fashion design studies.

“There’s not much else that we can do for now.” Kouen somehow maintains a perfectly straight posture despite the concern drawing fine lines on his forehead. “I can try to get into contact with Sinbad again later, though I doubt we’ll be able to get much with Ja’far as his personal secretary.”

“In any case, we should be more vigilant on whatever other jobs do come our way…” Hakuyuu looks over at Kougyoku and she almost jumps in her seat for being noticed despite not saying anything. “You should join Kouha and Ren on their upcoming job. An extra hand would be good for getting this over with, we’re starting to pile up a list of exorcisms.”

“Y-yes, of course!” Kougyoku nods too vigorously and then has to stop herself, luckily her oversized sleeves made it easy to fumble around without anyone seeing. It helps her keep her voice solid, at least. “I won’t let you down.”

“Oooh, Gyoku’s finally stepping it up!” Kouha smiles. “Don’t go tripping on your sword or anything.”

She frowns. “You should be the one worried about that, with that giant sword you swing around like some anime character.” 

“Oh but maybe I am?”

“Eugh, stop that-”

The tension in the room melts away with the bickering, melts away at a pace only possible with a relatively functional family. Kouha’s making fun of Kougyoku’s swordsmanship, Hakuren tries to give the most neutral statements he can when Kougyoku asks for validation. Koumei goes off to his own corner while Kouen practices a pitch with Hakuyuu. 

Hakuryuu doesn’t end up going all the way down the stairs. He doesn’t want to entertain himself in the kitchen while Kougyoku basks in attention. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao fuck consistent chapter lengths


	8. Chapter 8

The pain is mostly gone the next day, but Hakuryuu’s still not allowed to leave. Just in case, they said, just in case. As if there would be any chance that another attack would happen in a simple trip back and forth on a school day. It’s not as though he wants to go out and cause any trouble, he’s exactly the opposite of that. 

He’s sitting at the table, poring over books about mediumship and spirit channeling because he has to be doing something instead of stewing over things. No one has tried to come in and talk to him, thank god, but the silence needs to be filled up with other distractions, other noises like the flipping of pages and the scribblings of a pen on paper. Background noises are necessary, conversations are the last thing he needs. 

But even when there’s no conversation, the sense that he’s being watched is enough to make him fidgety, to make him look back and end up with a second of direct contact with those red eyes that never seem to blink. Judar’s watching while curled up on the other chair, gazing over like a cat that hasn’t decided how to bother its human yet. Hakuryuu could swear the braid swishes from side to side sometimes. 

“Are you just going to stare at me all day?” Hakuryuu doesn’t bother to look back but he can hear Judar rustling on his chair.

“Unless you’re gonna get off your ass and buy me some boba then probably.”

“Delivery apps exist. Go order one for yourself.”

There’s an audible gasp behind Hakuryuu. He sighs. “Just put it under my name.” That might honestly be more suspicious than having a random delivery of boba under some stranger’s name, but Hakuyuu’s been avoiding him since their last interaction so it should be okay. 

“Why don’t you tell me how to spell it then, Mr. Hakuryuu-not-Hakuryuu.” 

“I don’t want to hear your sass today.” He tells Judar how to spell it anyway, which is really just saying that there are two u’s at the end, with English having the relatively phonetic alphabet it does.

Luckily he didn’t run into anyone while picking up the boba from the door, and is surprised to see a thai boba tea next to the obviously fruit flavored one with extra lychee. 

“Yeah, I got you one. You’re looking way too broody today.”

“Uh, thanks?” That’s unexpected. He didn’t think demons were capable of selflessness. 

“I mean, you paid for it.”

“...I take it back.” Hakuryuu takes the drink anyway. It’s far too sweet even though it says half sugar on it. And Judar’s slurping when he’s trying to get the last bits at the bottom is too noisy even though it’s lychee. 

The way that Judar still sticks around, looking over at Hakuryuu’s shoulder at random moments and then sitting back on the chair in god knows what position, is grating at the back of Hakuryuu’s mind. He can barely read the seal script Chinese characters on the diagram he’s trying to focus his attention on, let alone actually learn and memorize it. 

“I’m bored, are you just going to look at old diagrams all day?” Judar tosses his mostly empty boba cup into the trash can. 

“If you’re bored, why don’t you leave.” Hakuryuu snaps.

“Well, you’re only stuck here because you haven’t healed. What if I said that… I could heal it right away?”

“If you can then just get it over with.” Hakuryuu still refuses to look in Judar’s direction. He’s sure if he swings his head in the direction of the demon, his fist will follow too. “If not, then leave me alone.”

“But I don’t wanna…”

Hakuryuu swings his head in Judar’s direction, hands gripping down on the arms of his chair to keep himself from doing anything.“Stop being such a spoiled brat and get out!” 

Judar looks like he’s about to say something but just shuts his mouth in a frown. “Hm. Fine. Have fun rotting in this room.” He takes no time to get up and jump out from the window. 

Finally alone again. Despite lighting up some incense and taking a couple of deep breaths to ground himself, Hakuryuu finds the bubbling welts of frustration aren’t leaving. Why aren’t they leaving. Is he that salty over his brothers and sister treating him like a child? Is he still salty over not being able to do anything against a demon when he’s had a myriad of opportunities in the past, what with all the failed poison experiments with Judar? He should just try to get rid of Judar as quickly as possible. They’re hanging out way too often now, it’s not good for him. His hands ball up into fists. He loathes the idea of finally having a chance to prove his worth and finding himself having any sliver of attachment to the demon that prevents him from doing the job. 

There’s also that Ithnan bastard. Who knows how many serpentine servants the snakecharmer demon can summon, even when he’s outside of Hell? Perhaps Judar is wrong and Ithnan does have contracts with humans, the extra power he’d get from the souls might allow him to essentially have an infinite roster of snakes that can be discharged at any time. He could have made deals with fools, such that the humans got relatively worthless wishes granted and therefore wasn't a liability to the demon. That would be all that’s necessary to borrow more power for a temporary visit on Earth to hunt down Judar (the demon Ithan is searching for most definitely has to be Judar, and the way Judar spits out the name only confirms it further in Hakuryuu’s mind.) Only using humans to instigate rebellions and riots… what is Judar thinking about, as if a demon would care about maintaining principles like that. The ends always justify the means. 

His thought process comes to a stop when there’s a buzzing from his phone.

_ Kougyoku: heyy im dropping by that dim sum place u like if u want anything 〔´∇｀〕 _

_ Kougyoku: if ur not feeling like cooking or whatever. You liked the siu mai most there right?  _

She must really have some nerve to be texting him like normal when she’s basically been given a huge promotion out of the blue.

_ Hakuryuu: I’ll be fine, thank you. _

She probably just offered out of pity. Or maybe to have an opening where she can brag about getting an important job before him, despite everyone expecting the opposite. Hakuryuu actually studies for his part. What does Kougyoku do besides practice swinging a sword around? The gall she has to even contact him at all. 

He’s not surprised when he hears a knock on the door about two hours later and finds Kougyoku on the other side. 

“H-hey Hakuryuu,” She tries to smile and holds up a plastic bag too high up close to her chest. “How are you doing? Have you been feeling better?”

“I’m recovering.” He’s not really in the mood to give anything more than a plain answer.

“That’s good! I happened to have some pork buns left over from the restaurant, if you want any.” She takes out the styrofoam takeout container and holds it up so he could take it. Instead Hakuryuu just looks at it. It’s a medium size, not the kind restaurant users would use if there was only one or two pork buns left. She either just got an extra order from him or got greedy and could only eat one of them. He’s not sure what he would be more offended by.

“I was just about to cook something, it’s fine.” 

Kougyoku nods and she puts the leftovers back in the plastic bag. “Oh okay, if you’re feeling good enough to cook…” She definitely made sure to leave something for him, and perhaps on a good day he wouldn’t find it so condescending. “I hope you get better soon though.”

“Thanks.” 

Luckily, Kougyoku knows how to not overstay her welcome, unlike some demon, and she goes off to her room on the other side of the house. Hakuryuu figures it’s as good a time as any to go downstairs and cook himself something, and fortunately it’s a Friday so he most likely won’t need to cook for anyone else except maybe Koumei. But Koumei has a bad habit of living off of overly salty delivery food anyway.

Hakuryuu makes sure to put his earphones on before he goes down to the kitchen, not really caring about whatever music is being played so long as it keeps playing. He keeps the volume just low enough so that he can hear the bright sizzling of the pan the moment he puts the beef in, the excited noises the vegetables make as he stir fries them. It’s a pretty simple meal he’s preparing for himself, but it’s loud, with most of the pans and pots on the stove having heated conversations with each other. He’ll take sizzling and bubbling over words of pity and nagging any day. He’s getting the plates and bowls ready so he can take the food out in a couple of minutes when-

He drops the bowl in his hands when he turns around and collides with a Judar that was standing right behind him. 

“Wh-what are you doing here? This is the kitchen!” Hakuryuu hisses in a loud whisper.

There’s bowl pieces all over the kitchen floor but Judar doesn’t look fazed in the slightest. “Yeah you weren’t in your room and I heard some cooking downstairs.”

“Anyone could come here any second, go back upstairs if you need to talk. Or better yet, just leave. I thought I told you to get out.” He’s not going to pick up the shattered bits of the bowl yet. Not when Judar’s right here and would literally be looking down on him as he picks things off the floor. The bastard would probably flash a cocky grin while he did it too. 

“No but I thought something was weird and I couldn’t think of the word for it until now.” 

“The word is “leave.” So just jump out the window like you always do.” It’s a miracle that Kougyoku hasn’t come downstairs to see what the noise is about. Maybe she’s too busy listening to her own music to hear. 

Judar actually makes a serious look at Hakuryuu’s face. “That’s not what I’m talking about. You’re acting really pissy right now. Like Ithnan manages to throw a spell at you. Your brothers must really suck at dispelling that shit.” 

“They are not.” Hakuryuu grits his teeth. They may baby him but they’re still experts in what they do. The skills they’ve learned have been passed down and refined for several generations. “Even if they couldn’t dispel something, it would have been obvious to see that it’s still there.”

“Yeah but Ithnan is a sneaky son of a bitch that likes to do things incognito when he can.”

“That would still leave small traces of dark energy that could be seen pulsing in and around the affected tissue.”

“The fuck is tissue- anyway, what was I saying…” Judar’s blank stare as he tries to remember his train of thought makes Hakuryuu suddenly aware that yes, Judar was standing right behind him when he was getting that bowl for the stew, but he’s standing uncomfortably close to him, close enough to feel the last bit of Judar’s breath before it fades in with the rest of the air. 

“If you can’t think of what you were going to say then clearly you don’t actually know what you’re talking about.” Hakuryuu hates that he has to glare up instead of glare down at him. 

“That doesn’t make any sense, I just got distracted.” Judar frowns. “And now I just completely forgot what I was gonna say, thanks to your bitching!”

Hakuryuu pushes Judar and the impact pushes the pan with the vegetables back. Judar’s hands grip the handle of the oven right below the stove to keep his arms from getting burned. “ _ My _ bitching? Maybe if you stopped barging in like I’m just a source of entertainment for you, I wouldn’t be “bitching” as much!” 

Judar coughs. “You’re blaming me? It’s not my fault you have a stick up your ass!” Hakuryuu could feel his left eye twitch, blood rushing all over his body, calling him to action, calling him to teach this demon a lesson, he deserves it, he deserves worse. 

Judar’s about to get back up but Hakuryuu pushes him back down, left hand going right for Judar’s throat like that’s where it should be. Pressing down on Judar’s throat, like that’s where it should be. Most of his neck might be protected with that gaudy collar he wears around as if it’s fashionable, but Hakuryuu’s hand can find a spot right under his jaw, digging in and under the choker, nails sinking deep enough to draw blood from a normal human. 

“H-Hakuryuu-” Judar’s voice is less cocky when it’s wheezing. Good. Hakuryuu barely realizes that there’s a sizzling noise, he only really notices the high-pitched pained noises that the demon under him is making, how the demon is struggling to worm out of where he’s being choked because the stove is still on high. It’s supposed to be cooking mushrooms, onion, and cabbage but now it’s just preparing for a second round of meat. 

Both hands are gripping and tugging at Hakuryuu’s left arm. It should be easy for a demon to fight back, get out of this position and cast a spell to end him immediately. Yet Hakuryuu can keep going, and the veins under his arm pulse at the thought of it. Part of him wants to keep going, to go so far where he can’t go back. There won’t be anything wrong with it anyway, Judar’s just a demon after all. If anything, it’ll be the trophy that he can finally show off to his family, and then he can teach all of them a lesson too.

“Th-this arm...isn’t y-y-gghhh...” Judar’s grip is weakening and Hakuryuu can see it in his eyes that it won’t be long until the demon finally dies. He’s been trying so many times. He’s failed and had to end up talking to him so many times. Hakuryuu’s finally getting what he wants. The odd sense of nausea and the spotty vision are nothing. He’s almost there. 

“...H-Hakuryuu?” He hears something else drop, nothing as dramatic as a bowl shattering. Something blunt. Hakuryuu blinks and tries to see what it is, despite the corners of his vision going black. It’s a couple of pork buns that escaped from the takeout container. Kougyoku is standing a couple feet away, hands trembling. 

He stops. His hand loosens and finally lets go, while Judar’s body slid down, slumping right onto some of the shattered bits of porcelain on the floor. What is he supposed to say? There’s nothing he can say, he can’t even describe the situation to himself beyond a sudden gut desire to kill. It’s still pulsing in fact, even now, except it doesn’t flow through his heart and up his neck to his head, only vibrating inside his arm like a beehive ready to attack, stinging every part of the skin from the underside. 

“...Kougyoku.” That’s all he can say. He feels his heart drop. 

He sees his arm drop too. Actually, drop would be an oversimplified way of explaining it. It’s more like the arm made a grumbling and crackling noise before the skin at the elbow just ripped off, and blood splattered on the forearm that’s now on the ground, another discarded piece like the shattered bowl and the unconscious demon. 

Kougyoku’s scream confirms it’s not a hallucination. Hakuryuu can’t help but to stare at the arm blankly. The whole thing fell off from the elbow down. And now it’s moving. Not through the fingers or through some odd flailing motion with the wrist, but the entirely of the arm starts to slither, as though it never had a bone in the first place. Kougyoku immediately pulls out a knife and manages to stab it down on the floor to keep whatever this cursed limb is in place. 

“What… wh-what is this?” She takes more than enough steps away from the thing as soon as she manages to keep the arm down. The wild flailing motions make it look like it could explode in any second. The oddest part is that there’s no curse energy floating around it. Hakuryuu vaguely remembers Judar saying something about that. But Judar never finished that line of thought, Hakuryuu made sure he never will. 

“I…” Hakuryuu doesn’t know what to do, so he turns off all of the stoves first. Everything’s definitely burnt by now, but he just wanted to make sure that he doesn’t accidentally start a fire on top of this entire disaster. “I, I don’t know.”

“How did your arm…” Kougyoku darts her eyes back and forth, conflicted between keeping a close eye on this slithering arm and looking away in disgust. “Was this from the demon you fought earlier? Wh-what were you even doing anyway?”

“I was…” Take a deep breath, Hakuryuu. The shock won’t let him. “I.. let my anger go to my head and all of a sudden… this happened.” Speaking of anger, where did it go?

Kougyoku pulls out two more knives from her sleeves and stabs the arm again and again, not caring that the blood splatters on her clothes and all around the kitchen until the rogue arm stops moving entirely. She makes a disgusted noise and shivers as she pulls the two knives back. The one keeping the arm down on the floor stays, just in case. 

“Are you okay? I mean, is the rest of you okay?” Kougyoku bites her lip and starts taking a better look at the rest of the disaster scene. “...What exactly happened here? Who is this guy and why were you choking him? Hakuryuu…”

He wishes he could come up with a proper answer. “...Let’s make sure that… whatever took over that arm is gone for good. I’ll take care of Judar.” He shouldn’t have said his name, but maybe Kougyoku will forget in the rush of things. 

“But… you only have one arm… I think Hakuren is close by I could call him-”

“No. I can carry this one out. Just deal with the arm for now. If I try to deal with it,” Hakuryuu looks down at the disaster on the floor, “then it might just make things worse.” 

“I guess you have a point…” Kougyoku keeps a firm grip on the two knives. “Alright, but be careful.”

Hakuryuu nods and tries to pick Judar up with one arm. The demon’s relatively light but that doesn’t make it much easier to carry him with only one and a half arms, especially since the other arm is still bleeding and he really needs to get to treating that if he doesn’t want to bleed to death. After a point he gives up on actually holding the body and just drags Judar up the stairs and to his room. 

He finally lets go of Judar’s top once he drags Judar to the window side of the room and he has to lean on the wall and grip the stub that was once his arm. The bleeding isn’t stopping… who knows what kind of trail he left in the hall and up the stairs. There should be a first aid kit in his closet… He can open the closet but his head spins at the items he sees and suddenly he forgets where exactly the kit is located. It has to be here somewhere, right? It shouldn’t take too long to look for it… His darkening vision tells him otherwise.

Hakuryuu wakes up an unknown amount of time later in his bed, stump bandaged and an IV hooked up to him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gonna change the rating here + add violence warning just in case idk what the line for these things really are rip


	9. Chapter 9

It must be nighttime, considering all the lights are on in the room and the shades of the windows are closed. Hakuryuu stares up at the ceiling fan, watching the blades turn in circles. He’d try to get up and try to move around if it weren’t for the IV and well... the lack of an arm. He can turn his head and look around the room though. There’s blood trailing from the door to the window to the closet, which mirrored the path that Hakuryuu took when he carried Judar’s body up here. Speaking of Judar, the demon’s not to be seen anywhere. Considering the state of his room is relatively intact (outside of the blood), Hakuryuu can only assume that Judar was able to make it out quietly. 

Just sitting up turns out to be a challenge, but Hakuryuu finds a way. His head spins in protest but he just keeps his eyes shut until he can think reasonably well. Why did he end up helping Judar in the first place? One could say it’s to make sure that Hakuryuu doesn’t get caught for associating with a demon, though the natural conclusion that anyone would take is that they must be enemies from Hakuryuu’s choking attempt. But any second thought would also lead to suspicion, because why would a demon curse someone’s arm, and then have that arm harm himself? It’d be too suspicious. But that wasn’t going through Hakuryuu’s head as he struggled in his attempt to pick Judar up. There wasn’t anything coherent really going through his head at that moment, in fact. Just the urgency, the adrenaline rush that kept him from experiencing the full brunt of pain, the shock of the entire scene from the first push to the last ragged breath he made before passing out. All of that, but no real thought. Carrying Judar up here just happened to be mixed up in all of this. Hakuryuu opens his eyes again and stares off at the wall.

He doesn’t dare even articulate the potential answers that are bubbling in his head. It’s ridiculous, completely nonsensical. There’s no reason why something like that would even happen. He won’t acknowledge the words that would make it concrete because then it has the threat of manifesting itself into something terrible. 

There’s a knock on the door.

“I’m awake.” Hakuryuu turns his head and watches as Hakuyuu enters the room.

“Ryuu…” The bags under his eyes are darker than usual. They’re only about to get darker.

“Yeah.” Hakuryuu’s not sure what else he could say, so he just watches as his older brother carefully sidesteps the trail of blood and pulls up a chair to his side. 

“...I’m sorry, Ryuu.” Hakuyuu hangs his head down and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he’s staring at the stump that was once Hakuryuu’s left arm. “This was due to my negligence. To think I couldn’t see something as dangerous as this was clearly in our house… clearly in you.”

“If none of us could detect it, it was clearly something next level. Or something that might not be entirely magical in the first place.” Hakuryuu keeps his eyes on his older brother. Just glancing down at the stump makes the pain scream out, wrangling for his full attention. 

“I know you don’t want to blame me, but I can’t excuse something like this…” Hakuyuu holds his hands together, something close to a prayer if they only believed in a god and not just demons and spirits that lurk in the streets. “I can’t believe I let myself repeat the same mistake. You almost died from that first ritual. It marred half your body.”

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?” It’s an odd feeling, playing the positive one. Perhaps survivalist would be a better word for it.

“You are, but no one can take things like this again and again. I knew it was too soon for all of us to be out of the house, even with all the protections inside the house.”

“I was lucky that Kougyoku happened to come back so soon. Who knows what might have happened had she not been there right on time.” And Hakuryuu means that in many ways. Would Judar have actually died? Would the curse have manifested itself differently had Hakuryuu succeeded in killing someone? There’s no way to tell, and he’s not sure if they’ll be able to extract that much information from what was his forearm.

“Of course, I’m grateful she was there. But if there were more of us… we could have done more.” Hakuyuu takes a long breath and picks his head back up to look Hakuryuu in the eye. “...You look tired. I won’t stay here long and make you worry. We will find a way to kill that demon. And we will make sure that you bounce back stronger than ever.” He pats Hakuryuu’s right shoulder lightly.

“Thanks Yuu-nii.” Hakuryuu wants to say that his brother looks even more tired. But that will just get them bouncing back and forth, and they’re both too tired for that on top of the rest of this mess. So Hakuyuu exits quietly. The silence doesn’t last long. Hakuyuu and Hakuren are yelling downstairs, voices muffled by the distance and the closed doors. Hakuren must have been the one that persuaded Hakuyuu to leave the house instead of staying and hovering around. Hakuren isn’t wrong, just unlucky. 

So Hakuryuu stares out at the wall again. It’s hard to even keep his eyes open, all of his strength fell off of him with that arm, with all the anger that festered and clung to it. The curse must have been aggravating him, keeping him from calming down like usual, getting him salty at small events that should not have affected him for more than five seconds. But now all of that sticky anger is gone, and now there’s nothing. He can’t find himself feeling anything for Hakuyuu’s obvious show of guilt. Hakuyuu, who kept himself up for so many nights after that catastrophe which gifted Hakuryuu with all these scars. And now this mistake as taken from both of them. 

Yet Hakuryuu feels nothing. Maybe that’s the thing about anger - it swells up inside, filling up the entire cavity of your body, and after it breaks loose there’s nothing else left inside because it had pushed out or consumed everything else that used to live there. Yet he’d never think about it until after the ashes cool down and everything falls silent. It would be scary to think about if he could feel right now. 

Hakuren appears minutes after the yelling is over. He doesn’t bother to knock, just comes right in and sits down at the same place as Hakuyuu just a moment ago. “Hey, you’re looking kind of rough right now.”

“Really now.”

“Sorry.” Hakuren scratches the back of his head. “I didn’t want things to get too mopey. How are you feeling though, do you need anything?”

“I’m fine for now.” His lips are parched and the pain is barely tolerable, but he doesn’t really  _ need _ anything. “...What exactly happened since I passed out?”

“I’m just finding out right now actually. Apparently Kouen was the one that got back here first, and managed to treat you before you lost too much blood. Thank god he used to work as an EMT while he was still considering medicine.”

“So, Kouen…” Hakuryuu looks down at the bandaged stump even if looking at it makes the pain worse. Kouen was the one that picked up his body in that pitiful state and mended it up. He probably got the IV too from whatever shady resource the family uses for certain medical supplies, since a lot of these things can’t really be taken to the hospital without some suspicious questioning. 

“Yeah. We really need more people with medical knowledge in our family.” Hakuren forces out a laugh. He’s usually better at it. “I really wish I could help in that aspect but… my brain was always pretty bad at science.” Yeah, and that's why Hakuryuu's also the one expected to go to medical school, something which he readily accepts.

“But what about-” 

“What about what?”

Judar. “Nothing… I think it slipped my mind.”

“Ah, well it’s my fault for keeping you up when you should be resting.” His older brother ruffles his hair as he gets up. “I’ll come by later with some food but you should sleep. Kouen should be coming back with more supplies soon.”

Hakuryuu feels his eyes close not long after the door. 

 

* * *

The worst thing about living with a family that deals with supernatural issues is that your cousin could almost die one day and then the next, you have to go to your history of design lecture and pretend that nothing it going on in your supposedly normal life. You’re supposed to look unfazed at the slides of the day, which happened to feature a modern high-end interior design collection that is based entirely on hands. Hands melding together to make a lamp, hands and forearms stacking on top of each other to make an entire bed frame. There’s no gorey aspect to it, the hands are all golden, so Kougyoku just slowly drinks her water and hopes that this aspect of the lecture flies by.

It doesn’t, but she finds a way to manage by just not paying attention to the lecture after a point. She can catch up on the material later. 

Kougyoku takes out her umbrella and starts walking out of campus. There’s a bakery nearby, maybe she should get something for Hakuryuu while he’s recovering, since he had been visiting those kinds of places. He does have high standards though… meanwhile Kougyoku usually just enjoys anything with enough chocolate. 

She’s looking through some of the options that are right by the entrance when the door opens and feels someone’s damp shoulder brush against her. 

“Sorry-” She locks eyes with him. Eyes so red they couldn’t belong to anyone else.

“Oh, it’s you.” 

Kougyoku never got his name. Not through the long stare from outside of the cafe, not through the nightmare that was yesterday evening. “Um, I’m glad to see you’re doing alright?”

She could have chosen better words. The man in front of her is completely drenched, he must’ve gone out without an umbrella or rain jacket. He’s actually more covered than the other two times that she’s seen him, by which she means that he’s not wearing a crop top. The shirt that he is wearing is still thin though, sticking onto his torso like tape. There’s also a couple cuts still healing on his cheek.

“I’m alive,” He shrugs. “Guess I should thank you for saving my ass out there. Your dad looked like he was ready to leave me passed out forever.”

“...That’s my half-brother.”

“Oh. Wow. Sucks to be him.” He goes off on his own, making a beeline towards the fruit tart section. Kougyoku has to follow behind him even though something deep in her gut tells her it’s a bad idea. 

“W-wait, so you’re just going to leave it like that?” She tries to look right up at him but the way he just stacks peach tart after peach tart on his tray without end is ridiculous.

“What else do you want me to say?” He takes every single one in stock and takes a mixed berry tart too. 

“I don’t know-”

“So nothing.”

“No, that’s not what I mean!” How does she ask without making things awkward? “Could you just… tell me what happened?”

He takes a second to look at her, eye makeup somehow intact even though there’s still water dripping off his hair. “...I might tell if you pay me, since Hakuryuu still owes me anyway. Oh and I want a drink, too.”

“Huh?” Kougyoku looks down at all the pastries that this guy wants to buy. “You’re joking, right? Are you going to eat all of those in one sitting?”

“Yeah, I’m hungry.” He says as if it was the most obvious thing ever. “I mean, if you don’t pay for it I was just gonna steal it anyway.”

Is this supposed to be Hakuryuu’s type? Or maybe this is the reason that Hakuryuu got so aggressive. “...Fine, but you better tell me what’s going on.”

“Yeah, I promise.” He smiles and Kougyoku can’t help but to think that his teeth look a little too sharp. 

They take a seat at the furthest corner not so much by the man’s suggestion so much as him making himself comfortable while Kougyoku was paying for all of the food. 

“So what happened? Are you, by any chance…” Kougyoku glances to the side as if there’s anyone that might be interested in eavesdropping on them. “...his boyfriend? Or uh, ex-boyfriend?”

“...Yeah! Yeah, you got me.” He’s eating the berry tart first, chewing slowly. “Oh but don’t worry, I’m not going to break up or anything.”

“H-huh?” Her head was too busy trying to run through reasons why Hakuryuu isn’t that bad of a guy after all, but this raises a different kind of red flag. “But… It looked like he was being really violent… Didn’t you get burned on the stove too?”

“Ah, the burn isn’t as bad as it looks. And I’m sure there’s another reason to it, it’s Hakuryuu after all. Besides, I’ve had worse.”

Worse?  _ Worse? _ Kougyoku’s too afraid to ask but the implications of that makes her want to ask if everything’s going alright in this man’s life. “O-oh… I’m sorry, we met in such weird circumstances that I never even introduced myself. My name’s Kougyoku, I’m Hakuryuu’s cousin.” 

“Judar.” He’s eyeing her in a completely analytical way, yet it doesn’t feel as intimidating now that Kougyoku has his name and a little more information about him. He looks like a troublemaker but the poor thing must have been through a lot of tough situations to just shrug off an incident like that.

“Anyway, Hakuryuu isn’t… in the best of health at the moment.” There’s no way to explain the loss of the arm without basically screaming that demons and curses are real. “He uh… collapsed suddenly not long after that so whatever’s going on was probably affecting his head too.”

“Oh I’m sure.” Judar smirks a little at that and Kougyoku’s not sure how to take it. “I could tell even while it was happening that something wasn’t quite right, you know what I mean?”

“...Yeah, of course.” Maybe he’s being a little too faithful about the goodwill of his boyfriend. Kougyoku knows Hakuryuu well enough by virtue of being his cousin and living in the same house all their lives, but Judar? Judar’s probably only known him for how long, a month? “But you don’t need to go out of your way to reconcile a relationship if you’re feeling scared or uncomfortable. He needs to respect your boundaries first.”

Judar takes a long gulp of his tea while staring at her. “You know, I think I like you. You’re pretty funny.”

“What?”

“It’s funny you care so much since you literally just met me. You don’t know a single thing about me.” He leans over the table. “I could be the bad one for all you know.”

“Wh- Like I would assume that about anyone, especially if someone like Hakuryuu decided to date you!” She crosses her arms. “He’s sharp enough to know if someone’s bad news. Even if you try to look like some street punk you have a soft side to you, don’t you?”

The silence only confirms her suspicions. “See?” She smiles. “There’s no way you’re the bad one.”

Judar breathes out a laugh. “It’s more like no one has ever said anything like that to me in my life, you crazy woman.”

“Hey, I just have a great sense of intuition.” Kougyoku presses her hand to her chest in a haughty manner. “I’m a bit of an expert in getting misunderstood people.”

“Misunderstood?” Judar uses one of the table’s tissues to dab some water out of his hair with an overexaggerated sigh. “Oh Kougyoku, I’ve been sooooooo misunderstood my whole life! I’ve been looking for someone who could finally get me, where have you been all this time? Kougyoku baby you’re going to need to buy yourself a coffee because I have. Just so much. To tell you.”

She is getting a bit hungry… And the double chocolate cake they serve here is only getting all the more tempting to eat. “...Alright, just give me a second, I’ll go order something for myself.” She practically scurries off to get herself a slice and a latte.

Judar has a hard time keeping himself from laughing his ass off while he sits there alone. 


	10. Chapter 10

“Alright, where do I even start? God…” Judar’s working on his second peach tart by the time Kougyoku comes back with her cake and latte. “Oh! Family’s always the perfect source of deep emotional trauma.”

“What was your family situation like?” Kougyoku looks up at him with concerned eyes but doesn’t spare any time taking the first bite of her cake. “Do you have siblings? Did you have both parents around?”

“Nah, it was just me and my mom. Which was horrible, I wish I had siblings just so that she might have someone else to abuse instead.” Kougyoku’s gripping her latte cup with both hands, fingertips pressing against the ceramic while the rest of her fingers arched over the heat. He takes it as a sign of concern and continues. “She was such a highkey gaslighter, it was always she never did anything, it was always my fault, I could never remember all the things that she did for me, yadda yadda yadda. On the worst days I wasn’t sure if I was even eating the things I thought I saw.”

“That’s horrible…” Kougyoku holds her cup in place, not sure if she should ask what “gaslighting” means or if that would just come off as rude and ignorant.

“Yeah, not to mention she was involved in some pretty shady shit too. Like cults and illegal trading, all that kind of stuff. That’s probably why she gaslit me so much, so I couldn’t give a confident report to the police about all the things she did.” Judar shakes his head, looking one step away from crying but takes a long gulp of tea. “She only adopted me right after I was born so that I could be a tool for all of that cult organization shit… Honestly I’m so glad I got out.”

“May I ask how you were able to get out?” She finally lets herself take a sip, but coffee doesn’t taste like anything when you’re suddenly being served with a mountain of trauma. “If that’s okay for you to talk about, that is. I just… I just imagine she’d be really controlling.”

“Oh she was. Even when I was at school, it felt like there was someone watching me. Or maybe that was just what it feels like when you didn’t have friends cause you were obviously some “problem child,” you know what I mean? Actually, you probably don’t.”

Kougyoku kind of knows. “Well… probably not to your extent. But I see what you mean.” 

“Good. Hate it when people are like “Oh I understand exactly how you feel!” No you don’t, fucking bastards.” Judar wipes off some pastry flakes from the side of his mouth with a single swipe. “And uh… where was I again?”

“Not really having anyone at school.”

“Oh! Yeah! Yeah there’s not that much more to that. Like I was ignored, but I wasn’t bullied, y’know? Guess even kids were afraid of what might happen if they messed with my mother’s son or some shit.” He stares out the window for a moment. “It stayed like that for a long while until… until…” He sniffles and Kougyoku’s not sure if he’s catching a cold or is just upset. Probably upset.

“Until… what you would call high school.” He continues. “Had this one teacher. Seemed like he actually cared about his students to the point that he’d actually reach out to me and everything. Used to talk to him after class and he got me to realize just how  _ bad _ my mom was cause, you never really realize it when you’re a little kid.” Kougyoku’s already aww-ing over that, even though she’s anticipating things to go south real soon. “Being the lonely dumbass as I was, I got the biggest teacher crush on him. So big we fucked.”

“Wait, what?” It’s a good thing Kougyoku put her cup down because otherwise it would’ve fell and shattered. “That… That’s not what a genuinely nice teacher would do. That’s just, manipulative.” Not to mention pedophilic but that might be a trigger word so she closes her lips.

“Yeah. He also dropped me right after that too. Suddenly pretended to be all regretful and oh no, we can’t do something like this, it’s wrong, I misled you, all that shit.” Judar scowls. “If he really felt like that, he would’ve stopped before whipping his dick out. Scumbag just wanted a free fuck with someone he knows won’t say no.”

“Oh Judar, I’m so sorry…” She’s not gonna cry, she can’t, her makeup’s not as waterproof as whatever Judar’s using. “And it was your first time too… I’m glad you were able to learn from that though, even if it cost so much.”

Judar laughs. “Did I really learn though? I have  _ such _ a bad habit of hooking up with men like that.” 

“Huh?” It’s amazing how Judar’s able to eat nonchalantly while talking about some of these things. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism.

“Yeah, adults who look like they sympathize with me and all my angsty youth struggles, but were also really assertive and dominant. The kind that look like they could command an army if they were born in the ancient times.” Judar sighs and finishes his tea even though he’s only halfway through the tarts. “All great in bed but all end up too controlling in real life… Honestly what a shame.”

Kougyoku’s speechless. By which she means she’s too busy internally screaming to think of anything coherent to say besides a big scream of concern. 

Judar finishes an entire peach tart before starting up again and Kougyoku can feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “But… I think Hakuryuu’s different.”

“...O-oh?” She hopes so too obviously, but the phrase “I think this one’s different” is so commonly said in books where the heroine’s been in so many abusive relationships that it just sets off another red flag in her head. 

“Yeah. Like he’s also a bossy guy and stuff but. He’s actually really considerate if you can get past the distant emo exterior, like he even buys me food all the time…” Judar sighs in the way one would expect mediocre actors to play out the role of a stereotypical, love struck teenage girl. 

“Still… With what happened before…” Kougyoku takes another bite of her cake even though most of her appetite left as soon as it came. “Maybe you should, uh, take a break?”

“Take a break? But shouldn’t I visit him while he’s sick?”

And see that Hakuryuu’s suddenly missing an arm? “I mean… with that fight that happened I think he might need some space to think it out. You should probably just text him to let him know that.”

“Hm… Maybe you’re right.” Judar leans back on the chair until it looks like it’s about to fall, but doesn’t. “But… you know, I really think that this one might be a keeper. Oh, don’t tell him I said that though, don’t want to give off too much at once.”

“A keeper? Hakuryuu?” The latte’s starting to get lukewarm but Kougyoku’s hands are still hot. “How so? How has your relationship with him been otherwise anyway, like how long have you dated?”

“Uhhh… Well I guess it’s only been about a month?”

“A month?” And he’s already thinking that Hakuryuu’s a keeper?

“Yeah, but it’s already been so much different than the relationships I’ve had in the past. First of all, I’ve mostly had short flings so it’s already better than that.” Judar looks way too happy about this. “Second, he hasn’t been trying to be too controlling with details about my life and knowing exactly what I’ve been doing everyday. Like I remember one of my exes was so protective he just didn’t want me to leave the house ever in case anyone even thought about hitting on me, which felt so sweet of him at first until I realized there’s nothing to do at home. Oh, and Hakuryuu looks like he’s on the straight path too, like no gangs or drug deals or anything like that.”

“...I mean… if that’s your standard then I guess he would look like gold…” She’s not sure how to make it sound not condescending or overly concerned. “But choking someone over the stove isn’t healthy. No matter what.” 

Was the choking incident actually Hakuryuu’s fault? Kougyoku would have to go question her cousin when he’s feeling a little better. She’s sure that the curse pulled most of the weight on that and probably aggravated him but there had to have been some root of irritation for this to happen in the first place, right?

“If it’s just that one time and it never happens again, it’s healthy right?” Judar slumps a little in his seat. “I don’t know Kougyoku, am I just being one of those problem kids who just bounce from one bad man to another because I never got the proper love from my mom or something like that? Is that what I’m doomed to be?”

“Oh Judar nooooo,” She reaches out her hand to his side of the table even though both of Judar’s hands are on his lap at the moment. “You don’t have to be defined by all the horrible shit your mom and that teacher did to you. I mean, as his cousin, I hope that Hakuryuu is more decent than a piece of trash like that but even if he turns out to be the worst, know that you can get out of this one step and a time, okay?”

Tears prickle Judar’s eyes. “Thanks Kougyoku… Wow, where would I be without you? We should meet up more often.”

“Yeah, of course! Do you want my phone number?”

“Phone? Uh…” Shit. “My phone’s not really working at the moment. Might have to get a new one.” He looks up in the way that people do when they’re trying to think of something on the spot. “How about we meet up in the same place? Right here, same time tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow…” Kougyoku checks her schedule on her phone, which includes finding out that she’s already spent an hour here when she was supposed to get back home immediately. “Yeah, of course! I can do that. And I’m really, really sorry to cut this off short, Judar, but I gotta get back. Hakuryuu’s really ill right now, so I have to make sure to be there. Oh, do you know what kind of pastry Hakuryuu would like?”

“Hm that’s hard to say, he always ends up just getting coffee. I don’t know, maybe something coffee or mocha flavored then.” 

“Thanks, I’ll try that out.” Kougyoku tries to quickly finish her cake and latte without looking too boorish and then gives Judar a quick hug even though he’s still a bit damp from the downpour. “It was good to get to know you, Judar, see you tomorrow!”

She makes a quick selection of some pastries to buy for her family and tries to move the fastest she can in the rain without making a mess of herself. After a point it’s hard to tell if the rush was because of her concern for her family’s wellbeing or the lurking suspicion that Hakuryuu might be just as bad as some of the exes that Judar has described. He didn’t even go that far into them, but even still… to even fathom that Hakuryuu might be the type of person who would be abusively controlling his partner…

Well, if he does anything nearly as horrible to Judar again, then Kougyoku will just have to put a stop to the relationship herself. 

 

* * *

The days go quietly in Hakuryuu’s room. Clearly he couldn’t go back to school like this, so Hakuyuu had to send a letter of extended medical leave for him. It’ll push him back for a semester, but Hakuryuu knows he can manage to study and test out of it. Missing school seemed like a big problem when he only had the collection of snake bites, but now it just seems like a minor inconvenience. Alibaba won’t stop texting or calling him though, and even Morgiana has left a few messages of concern. Hakuryuu just makes sure to be vague enough until he can think of a proper lie, maybe something like a horrible car accident. 

Kouen drops by frequently to make sure that he has an IV on and provides him with painkillers and iron supplements, but they had to hire a healer from the Carmen family since they are actually knowledgeable in modern medicine and curses. Hakuyuu and Hakuren make sure to visit as frequently as their schedules can allow. They don’t need to, it’s not as if Hakuryuu thinks they’re ignoring him, but their neverending sense of obligation keeps them coming anyway. Even Koumei and Kouha take time to drop by, though he likes their visits a lot less.

The only ones he hasn’t seen are Hakuei and Kougyoku. Kougyoku is understandable considering she saw everything that happened and is likely still processing the events. Kouha even passed on a mocha bun that she apparently wanted to give but was too shy to. Hakuei though… where is she? It doesn’t make any sense. 

He would ask his brothers, and they would dodge it every time. Hakuren would at least be able to make up some random thing that Hakuei could reasonably be doing, while his oldest brother stumbles on his words and barely makes a response before changing the topic. 

On the fourth day there’s a shy knock on the door. Hakuryuu’s hopes rise up. But no, it’s just Kougyoku. 

“Hey Hakuryuu…” She slowly closes the door behind her as if it were some fragile object. “How are you doing? Any progress on the prosthetic?”

“I haven’t gotten it yet. The doctor took the measurements for it yesterday so he said that it might take two to three weeks to make it, since I had some special requests for it.”

“Special requests?” She’s standing there by the door unlike anybody else, with one foot forward but lacking the confidence to walk all the way to the chair. 

“Yeah. Something that could actually help against demons.”

“Wow, that’d be really great if it could double as a weapon too! I’m sure you’ll come back stronger than ever.”

“Maybe, but it won’t ever be a real arm.” He knows she’s trying to lighten up the mood in the awkward way she tries, but he really doesn’t care. “None of that curse got on to you when my arm fell off, did it?” 

“No, not at all. They haven’t been able to find anything and I haven’t been showing the signs that you have, so I think I’m safe.” The signs. Yeah, Hakuryuu was acting completely out of line then, though he’s not sure if his pride would allow him to apologize to a demon of all things. Does he feel bad? He’s not sure, but he knows it was the wrong action anyway. 

“Um, so…” She fumbles with her sleeves. “Well first of all, I’m sorry I didn’t visit sooner. I guess I was just... shocked by what happened? And I wasn’t sure what I could talk about even if I swallowed and walked right in.” 

“That’s fine.”

She’s staring down at the carpet that’s been completely clean of blood, as if nothing ever happened that day. “Thanks, uh…”

She’s still staring. “What do you want to say? Just spill it.” 

“It’s nothing big! Just uh, just wanted to let you know that… I’ve actually been talking with Judar.”

Hakuryuu doesn’t have any drink to spit out in a cliche manner so he just gapes instead. “You what?”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell any embarrassing stories about you or anything, at least I don’t remember doing so uh,” She’s only fumbling more with her sleeves. “He’s completely head over heels for you, you know.”

“...What in the world are you talking about.”

“It’s true! He keeps telling me not to tell you but it’s just so obvious.” She finally starts walking to the chair now to take a seat. Apparently talking about these kinds of things makes her more comfortable. “He seems like a misguided person who’s been through a lot of bad things so… well, I don’t know what was actually going on behind the fight but-”

“Are you seriously going on his side right now?” 

Kougyoku blinks. “Huh?”

Hakuryuu can’t believe he has to do this. “Are you seriously siding with him over me? Do you even know he’s-” He stops. Think about it for a quick second, would there be any way she would choose a demon over family, especially if that demon has only interacted with her for a couple of days max? There’s no way she knows. “...You don’t even know anything about him. He could be lying about everything he’s told you.”

“It sounded thought out and genuine to me!” Kougyoku huffs. “If he’s that bad, then why did you ever start dating him in the first place?”

“What, we aren’t-” Hakuryuu has to take a moment. This is a better conclusion for her to reach than knowing Judar’s a demon, he reminds himself. He just hopes she never sees them together again and starts saying anything weird. “...That’s none of your business.” 

“Fine.” She’s giving him a look that says just because she’s backing down for now, doesn’t mean that she’ll be letting this go. Now on top of his concerns about his recovery and the prosthetic, where Hakuei has been, and what Ithnan has been doing, now he has to make sure to get rid of Judar in some way without Kougyoku knowing and definitely before others all think he’s in some secret relationship with some bad boy. This should not be making his head hurt as much as the phantom limb pain.

“By the way, have you seen Hakuei recently?” Hakuryuu reaches over for the painkillers and Kougyoku opens the bottle, gets two pills for him with a glass of water on the nightstand. He gives a small thanks and takes the medicine.

“Sorry?” She smiles the way she does when she’s not really getting something but doesn’t want to look rude.

“Hakuei. Have you seen her.”

The smile drops. “Oh, they haven’t told y-” She bites the inside of her lip. “Well. N-no, I haven’t seen her really. I’m sure your brothers know.”

Hakuryuu narrows his eyes. “You know something, what’s going on? Neither Yuu-nii or Ren-nii have been answering me.” He puts the glass back down. 

Her lip twitches and she grips the ruffles at the bottom of her skirt. 

“Kougyoku. Please tell me. Where is she?”

“I wasn’t supposed to tell you this yet but. Hakuei, she…” Kougyoku gulps. “She’s in surgery right now.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Wait Hakuryuu you really shouldn’t be doing this-”

“None of you should have been hiding this from me in the first place, since when was Ei-nee hurt?” 

Hakuryuu’s off of his bed, walking out of the room while using his one arm to push the IV along. His head’s spinning at suddenly getting up like this while his body is still lacking in blood. Kougyoku follows right behind him and gives the smallest tug on his sleeve.

“We just wanted to wait a bit! And we thought the first operation was gonna go by with no problems so-”

“You mean there was another one before this?”

“Well.” Oh she’s fucking up so much right now. This whole thing is a mistake. “Uh… They thought it was going to be like, a guaranteed operation at first but… but then her health suddenly took a turn for the worse so they’re, uh, operating again… This one should be the last one though! The doctors are sure of it!” They are not sure of it at all. In fact, this second run has become a lot riskier, but she can’t say anything like that now.

“That doesn’t make any sense if it’s an emergency second operation.” Well there goes trying to calm him down. “It means something went really bad. And none of you could care to tell me.”

“No that… Hakuryuu…” 

Instead of holding Hakuryuu back, Kougyoku finds herself following behind and attempting to help him down the stairs. Except that it’s more like Hakuryuu’s stubbornly going down the stairs himself, one arm lifting up the IV, the other half of an arm trying to keep him balanced and Kougyoku’s hovering behind without trying to be too intrusive but ready just in case something happens. 

Kouha’s the first one that sees them as they enter the living room. “Wh- Hakuryuu, aren’t you supposed to be lying in bed and moping or something?”

“Where are my brothers.”

“Hey you should answer me first, I’m older.” Kouha tilts his head to see Kougyoku standing behind. “So what’s going on?”

“I might’ve maybe had kind of told Hakuryuu that Hakuei’s under surgery.” She opts to stare at the floor over looking Kouha in the eye.

“...Wow, way to go, Gyoku.” 

“Do you know where my brothers are or not?” Hakuryuu glares.

“Last I checked they were going downstairs to the basement. Don’t go losing your other arm while fighting with them though.” 

Hakuryuu huffs and goes without a reply. Kougyoku scurries behind him.

“Yuu-nii. Ren-nii.”

Both of the brothers look up from the herb drawer they were examining.

“What are you doing here Ryuu? You should be in your room.” Hakuyuu speaks up first, as always. 

“More like what were you two thinking not telling me what’s going on with Ei-nee?” The two stare at Hakuryuu blankly before looking at Kougyoku and connecting the dots. Hakuyuu frowns at her while Hakuren bites his lip, thinking of the best way to respond.

“Look Ryuu, we were going to tell you sooner or later anyway…” Hakuren rubs the back of his neck. “It’s just that there’s been so much going on, and we didn’t want to burden you considering what literally just happened to you.”

“Oh, you were going to tell me? When, weeks after the fact like that time you broke your leg while Yuu-nii thought it would be great to send me off to camp?” Hakuryuu’s grip on the IV stand tightens until it looks like he could bend the thing with sheer willpower.

Hakuyuu sighs. “Ryuu that was almost eight years ago-”

“It was the most obvious example I could think of but you all keep doing things like that again and again. I can let some of the smaller ones slide but this? You expect me to just let this slide?” Hakuryuu grits his teeth. “What, do you want me to say ‘Yuu-nii, Ren-nii, it’s okay, I don’t care what happens to my older sister’?”

Hakuyuu takes a step closer. “Hakuryuu…”

“What.”

“Say I did tell you immediately, woke you up in the middle of your sleep to tell you that Hakuei got severely injured. Then what?” He hasn’t seen the bags under Hakuyuu’s eyes run so deep and dark before. “What would that change? There’s enough stressing you out already, and you need to focus on your own recovery. Adding the stress of worrying over our sister’s well-being could only detriment that.”

Hakuryuu looks at the ground. How right they are. How much he hates that. “So is that how you thought through this.”

“Yes. You didn’t need to take any of the burden yet.”

“...Because I’m incapable of taking on that burden? Or because I can’t make any use of it?”

“You know that’s not what this is about.” Hakuren interjects. “We care about you, Ryuu. A lot. You’re our only baby brother, of course we’d try to do what’s best.”

Baby brother, huh. That’s just what it is in the end, nothing could change that. If Hakuryuu wasn’t hooked up to this IV he could use the metal stand like a spear. But then he remembers the last time he let his temper go completely, albeit under a curse. So he just keeps a still face. This isn’t the time to yell or have a tantrum.

“I still deserve to know, and now that I do you might as well tell me more details. What exactly happened, how did Ei-nee get so injured, and what kind of operation are they doing? How long will it take for her to recover?”

The older brothers look at each other. Hakuren starts. “Not long after the curse that took your arm, Hakuei was coming back home and she had a run-in with what was most likely a demon.”

“Most likely? You aren’t sure?”

“Well… I found her bleeding out on the floor, unconscious. Only a block away from home too, like what happened with you. So it’s highly likely that it’s the same demon that you confronted before.”

“Were there snake bites?”

Hakuren frowns. “There were some punctures but there was a large gash right on her torso. I got her to the emergency room in time and they thought they figured it out but… some complications happened.”

“...What kind of complications.”

“They say it’s sudden internal bleeding and a rejection of the blood transfusion, but I suspect that there’s some magic going on under it too.” Hakuyuu crosses his arms and sighs. “Unfortunately, we can’t do anything about it right now since the doctors and surgeons are the ones in control right now, but as soon as she’s in stable enough condition to visit we’ll be examining that side just in case. It’s why we’re down here right now.”

“It’s gonna be hard to sneak some of these in, with the nurses always watching over while we visit.” Hakuren closes the herb drawer they were looking at and pulls at a different medicinal herb. “Yuu-nii, you might need to sweet talk the nurse this time, she’s probably gotten tired of me trying to start a conversation every time.”

“So you have no idea who or what hurt her.” It could be Ithnan and Hakuei was able to get through the snakes only to get a direct hit from the demon. But it could just as likely be another demon. Hakuryuu doesn’t want to admit it, as obvious as the other suspect is. Electricity might not do something like this, but ice could easily be sharpened into weapons and projectiles. That’s more than enough.

“We have our suspects, but we won’t know for sure until Hakuei wakes up.” says Hakuyuu. “And in any case, we need to get kill or otherwise exorcise all of them anyway. I passed a note to the Carmens and they’re rush ordering the parts they need for your prosthetic. We could try to find you a normal one in the meantime, but the new one will probably come before you can get used to moving in that one.”

“...But at least I can start getting used to prosthetics in general. I can work with the general one first and then change when it’s ready.” It’ll probably remain mostly useless but Hakuryuu has to take what he can get. 

“Alright, I’ll let Kouen know.” 

“I can do that for you, since you’re busy.” Kougyoku speaks up. “I shouldn’t stay here too long anyway… Don’t worry, I’ll call him immediately.”

“Oh, thanks Kougyoku.” Hakuyuu pauses as he looks at Hakuryuu’s clearly displeased face. “...In the meantime, Hakuryuu, how much do you remember your traditional medicines?”

Hakuryuu blinks and the frown fades away in surprise. “I think I still have a firm grasp on them, though I don’t know them as well as the poisons.”

“That’s fine. You should help us.” Not go back upstairs to your room and lay in bed to rot with worry. 

“Uh, sure, but Hakuren. You’re looking at a neurotoxin right now, don’t waste your time with it.”

“Oh whoops.” Hakuren closes the drawer though it’s obvious that he was about to open one of the bags and sniff it. “Yeah, this isn’t really my strong suit.”

Hakuyuu sighs. “I don’t know why I brought you here. You should probably go with Kouha and Kougyoku to deal with the dao lao gui colony before any other issues come up.”

“Yeah, you’re right. You two have fun then.” Hakuren gives both of them a solid pat on the back.

Hakuryuu would almost be happy to be doing something if Kougyoku isn’t about to go hunting. Alone time with his oldest brother goes better than he expected it though. There’s the awkward tinge in the air that comes with a heated topic that has to be suddenly sept under the table, but other than that Hakuyuu takes his opinions on the medicines seriously, like equals instead of condescending older brother to child. Hakuyuu might just be doing this one time because looking through these drawers doesn’t have any physical risk and he feels bad for the argument. Hakuryuu won’t hold it against him. There’s too little to do in his room now, especially since the nuisance that could finally give some entertainment hasn’t been seen since. 

Maybe Judar is never coming back. That’s the thought that keeps coming back to Hakuryuu’s mind when he catches himself looking out at the mirror as the days go by. Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he never comes back. After all, Hakuryuu did try to take the demon’s life more times than he could count and almost succeeded once. That’s more than enough reason for anyone to leave. Yet when Hakuryuu wakes up in the morning, the first thing he looks at as he gets up is the window. When he lays down in bed for the night, when he’s trying to keep his eyes closed so sleep would finally let him in, he’ll open his eyes and glance in the direction of the window just in case he isn’t imagining the sensation of a light breeze. 

Rude, abrasive company would be a refreshing change. All the interactions with family have been stiff and awkward. Hakuei’s surgery went well, which is a relief, and the medicines Hakuyuu snuck in helped. She’s to be discharged from the hospital soon.

“Is she doing okay? Have there been any complications?” Hakuryuu once asked over the phone.

A bus was making noise at its stop but he could hear Hakuren clear enough. “She’s recovering really well, to the point that it’s shocked the doctors! And I just got a profile of the demon, so we’ll be cracking down on that as soon as possible.”

“What kind of demon was it?” Something tugged at his stomach. He tries to ignore it, but that just makes his shoulders tense up too. 

“Pretty strong one, not something any of us were able to exactly classify yet. But don’t worry Ryuu, we’ll crack it down before you know it.” There was a beeping noise that sounds like Hakuren checking into a bus. “I’ve got to drop by that store to pick up some supplies but I won’t take too long, see you in a bit Ryuu!”

“Wait what about-” Hakuren hung up. Hakuryuu placed the phone down with his prosthetic arm that still feels like a foreign stump, which it might always feel like. He wasn’t sure what’s worse, Hakuyuu’s outright refusal to tell Hakuryuu anything because he shouldn’t leave the house until at least he’s gotten the new prosthetic and could control it properly, or Hakuren’s tendency to give dodgy answers while pretending he’s more on Hakuryuu’s side. 

Kougyoku doesn’t mention Judar anymore. She doesn’t really mention anything at all in front of him, actually. She doesn’t need to, now that she can just tag along behind Hakuren and Kouha and keep herself busy between that and her fashion design studies. It just makes avoiding him all the more easier, and so she’s usually busy on her phone when he’s around. 

 

* * *

 

Hakuryuu opens the windows of his room in the morning now. Just to let some fresh air in and to practice using the prosthetic, of course. It won’t be long until he gets the new one. It’s supposed to be highly curse resistant, like himself. That doesn’t mean it’s immune.

 

* * *

 

Even Hakuei is unwilling to tell Hakuryuu anything. She’s all small smiles and pretends it’s her fault by saying her memory is a little fuzzy. As if she wouldn’t remember the face of someone who left scars that will never be erased. Hakuryuu knows that best.

 

* * *

 

The new arm looks disappointing considering how long he had to wait and how it looks like any other prosthetic. But he’ll find a way to make it work.

 

* * *

 

Hakuryuu has stopped opening the windows every morning by the time he’s able to go outside again. Hakuyuu just couldn’t be comfortable with the idea of him roaming around until the movement of his left arm is indistinguishable from his right. 

So on the first day, Hakuryuu doesn’t really do anything noteworthy outside. Just goes out to get groceries at the nearest store. He walks out of there without much problem, just a couple bags of produce and meat hanging off his prosthetic arm. He’ll just come back, cook something for dinner, and then start investigating what Ithnan is doing now and whether he was the one that hurt Hakuei that day.

He’s walking down the street when the door to the chocolatier’s place opens and two people walk out, chatting like any friends who are just hanging out. Except they aren’t just any friends.

“Kougyoku?”

The first one freezes. The other one takes a second to turn around and look at Hakuryuu.

“Hakuryuu? You’re out?”

“Just to buy some things.” Hakuryuu replies without looking at Kougyoku at all. “...Judar.”

"Hakuryuu. Nice arm you got there."

"I'm… sure there's a lot you two wanna catch up on." Kougyoku looks ready to go at any moment. "I have some uh, things I need to do anyway. See you!" And she goes off just like that.

Hakuryuu waits until she's out of hearing range. "What are you trying to do with her."

"Wow, you haven't seen me for like a month and that's the first thing you ask?" Judar places his hands on his hips. "We're like, sort of friends I guess."

"You two?" So she's been keeping contact with him.

"Yeah. Just casual chats. Free food. She's easy to mess with."

"Is that so." Hakuryuu isn’t sure what he expected of Judar, maybe Judar going right for his throat, or getting immediately yelled at, or ignoring and avoiding. But it’s not like Judar’s jumping for joy to see him again or anything either. This is pretty neutral, except the fact that they’re standing farther away from each other than usual.

“Yeah. Surprised to see you’re alive though, guess you got rid of the problem the blunt way.” Judar motions at the prosthetic.

“About that…” He’s not sure whether to feel guilty or not, even now. It’s been wavering back and forth, but he should say the polite thing anyway. “I should apologize for what happened. It might just sound like an excuse but my arm-”

“Was cursed by Ithnan, yeah I figured that much while I was passing out.” 

“Huh?” Hakuryuu blinks.

“The whites of your eyes were turning black while you were going batshit.” Judar states like it’s the most obvious thing. “And Ithnan’s part of a faction that knows how to corrupt a soul without needing to make a contract, which is some pretty fucked up shit. Did someone cut the arm off of you? You looked too far gone to realize the issue yourself.”

Hakuryuu clears his throat. Don’t pay attention to that backhanded comment at the end. “Kougyoku walked in and it caught me by surprise so I dropped you. The arm just dropped by itself and tried to escape but she managed to kill it.”

“Oh, she’s involved in exorcist shit too? She has the perception of a brick though.”

“Mediumship is a birthright but anyone can learn to be an exorcist.”

“Huh.” Judar says, not caring enough to let that sink in. “Well whatever. Guess Ithnan just wanted to use you to make another vessel for himself.”

“...Is that what you think it was?” Hakuryuu almost drops his bags cause his hand moved to rub where his real arm ends and the prosthetic begins. A demon… developing inside him. 

“If he didn’t just want you to fall, I guess so.” Judar shrugs. “Fucker has a bad habit of coming back no matter how many times you kill him, he has to have some method behind it. Probably just fed off and amplified whatever anger you had.” 

“That would explain things.”

“Yeah, really shows some things about you.” Judar’s looking way too intently at him. Hakuryuu almost wants to take a step back, but pride keeps him standing stiff.

“What do you mean.”

“Did you want to kill me for a while? Serve my head on a silver platter to your exorcist friends and family? Make a pretty little trophy out of it?” A couple passing by the street makes a double take at them before walking faster. 

Hakuryuu doesn’t respond, so Judar continues. “You’re an exorcist, of course you thought about it.” The grin he wears would bring a shiver down Hakuryuu’s spine if he wasn’t so used to it. “But normally, you couldn’t. I was just thrown off with the cursed arm and all.”

“...So you’re telling me you’re completely unfazed by this.” That can’t be right. Judar has to be baiting him or something. No one just pardons a murder attempt like that. No human would just let something like this slide even if they appear to be forgiving, and demons are known for their constantly burning spite.

“Uh, I wouldn’t say unfazed.” Judar scratches the back of his head. “But choking and a small burn like that is nothing compared to what could happen to you in Hell. If I had to choose between killing you and Ithnan, I’d kill Ithnan a thousand times first.”

“And I assume if you wanted to kill me you’d have gone for it already anyway.” That… sort of makes sense, theoretically. Hakuryuu figures he won’t truly be able to understand that, having never experienced anything remotely like that. 

“Yeah. You still owe me anyway. I’m adding an extra charge for you trying to choke me. Like an extra thousand dollars.”

“What?” 

“Hey, I’m letting you off cheap. A thousand dollars is nothing compared to a life like mine.”

He’s not wrong. “...Fine. Does that mean you want to go somewhere right now? At least let me drop these groceries off.”

“Nah, I’m full. I’ll find you later.” Judar pats Hakuryuu on the back. “Let me know when you can use that arm fully, with all the magic and stuff. I think we could have a good time making Ithnan’s guts spill on the floor.” He goes off on his own, not looking back even when Hakuryuu calls to him.

Hakuryuu can’t understand him at all.


	12. Chapter 12

Judar comes back the day after the encounter, which is exactly what Hakuryuu had expected. Hence why he kept the blinds closed and tried to busy himself with exercises the physical therapist gave for his prosthetic mobility instead of staring out the window like a fool.

“Ahhhh ow ow ow,” Judar hisses as he pushes himself into the room. “Eugh Hakuryuu why’d you have to make these defenses so much higher now, they actually sting it’s really annoying.”

“I didn’t change anything.” Hakuryuu replies, gaze still focused on the way that the fingers would curl up, but too slowly and with a definite lack of strength. One of his brothers must’ve reinforced his room while he was passed out and being taken care of. “Maybe you’ve just gotten weaker.”

Judar gapes for a second, as if he’s actually considering that possibility. “...No I didn’t, you did something to the walls, I could feel it even from outside. Anyway, I came to talk.”

No surprise. Hakuryuu looks up at him. “What is it?”

Judar’s mouth curls up into a twisted grin. “You should team up with me so we can finally kill Ithnan for good.”

“Why should I do that with you. There are eight of us living in this house.” With varying degrees of mobility at the moment, but Judar doesn’t need to know that. “And don’t even think about sitting in my bed.” 

“I wasn’t thinking about it.” says Judar, but suddenly makes a turn from walking towards the bed to sitting on the usual chair on the side. It should be abnormal how their interactions are just so casual again. Then again, nothing about this was ever normal to begin with. “And like eight humans could get together and pull it off.” He scoffs.

“If you’re that much stronger, why don’t you do it yourself?”

“I mean, I have the raw power.” He says it so casually it’s like he came here to brag. “I’ve destroyed his body a bunch of times. The problem is that he’s like a gross cockroach that keeps coming back, or more like a colony of them. That’s why I need someone else to help me and you’re perfect!”

“Why, because I have a perfect reason to want revenge?” Hakuryuu does, and he does want it. But not by working with a different demon and lowering himself to their level. 

“Yeah, that and you exorcists are good at tracking, right?”

It clicks. Judar did mention that the cursed arm was most likely being used as a vessel for another Ithnan, as unbelievable as it may seem. But when working with this kind of situation, they need to constantly think in terms of the unbelievable. Hakuryuu still doesn’t understand how that curse was able to grow inside him for so long without a trace until the big explosion of anger, but he might have better luck tracking any other possible proto-Ithnans.

“What, you think that I would be able to track when I couldn’t even see the curse that was lodged deeply in my arm?”

“I don’t know, maybe your body can recognize it better now that you’ve been exposed to it or something like that.”

“So you want my help but you don’t even know if I will actually be helpful.” At least it’s different from constantly being shoved aside for the sake of his own “safety.” But that doesn’t make it any less stupid.

“If you turn out to be a drag on me then I’ll just leave you aside and deal with it myself.” Judar says with a plain face. “There’s nothing for you to lose.”

“Doesn’t mean I’ll want to jump in on an opportunity to work with a demon.”

“Oh, is that what’s holding you back?” Judar pouts, making some shards of ice with his hand and playing around with its geometry, shifting between shapes but always staying sharp and angular like himself. “You humans and your weird stigmas. And I thought you were different from the others.”

“Flattery’s not going to get you anywhere.” Hakuryuu curls each finger one by one, noting how the ring finger and pinky are still slow and stiff. “You can find a different demon to collaborate with.”

“But there are no others! Besides the really weak ones that don’t even have their own personalities.” The ice curls into a crescent shape and orbits around Judar’s finger. “And you’re the closest to a demon I’ve seen from humans in a while, so here I am.”

Hakuryuu glares at the smiling demon. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You can see ghosts. That means you should be able to sense it to some degree, right? The qualities of souls.” Judar crushes the shard of ice in his hands, not wincing when blood starts dripping from his palm. “I might’ve said this before, maybe not, I don’t remember. But there’s something tainted about you. I can’t put my finger on it.” 

“...You’re only making it harder to persuade me.” Hakuryuu keeps his expression serious and unmoving even as Judar’s eyes start from gazing right into his eyes then crawling down, detail by detail, to his chest.

“It’s almost like you’re pretty familiar with demons, as much as you try to be all “I can’t do this with a demon” and all that bullshit.” When Judar opens his palm, the ice had melted and mixed with the running blood. “Basically you look two shades away from a soul that was sold off to a demon for power. What kind of shady things have you been doing in the past?”

Hakuryuu has his suspicions on what Judar is trying to guess at. But telling something like that would only give the other and advantage. He doesn’t know nearly enough about Judar to warrant giving up such information. “I haven’t been doing anything. You seem like you need to get your eyes checked.”

Judar frowns. “What, it’s not like I’d judge you for doing anything shady. I’ve probably done something leagues worse just a month ago, not to mention all the shit that I was doing last time I was chilling out here.” 

“All the more reason I don’t want to tell you anything, let alone work with you.” 

“So stiff as always.” Judar groans and the cuts on his hand start to heal up at a supernatural speed, spilled blood crystallizing into red ice shards. “Well, what are you going to do then? I doubt you just want to sit around while Ithnan is off doing whatever the fuck he wants.”

“Did you forget my entire family is made up of exorcists?”

“I mean, if you want them all to die then go ahead, I don’t care. Actually, it might just make things easier because then I could just swoop in afterwards and finish him off myself when he’s a little more tired. It’ll be fun to kick around all your corpses too afterwards.” 

Hakuryuu would chuck his prosthetic at Judar’s cocky grin if it would actually do anything.

“But,” Judar continues on, “That won’t be a problem if you work with me. C’mon, you don’t even need to sell your soul for it, you’re practically getting a free chance at Ithnan’s head.”

“... I don’t know why you think that anything you’re saying could possibly persuade me.”

Judar gets up from his chair. “Fine. Don’t think I’m just going to give up like you. I’ve been waiting for a chance to skewer his guts once and for all for centuries.” He starts walking but looks once more at Hakuryuu through the corner of his eye. “I know you wouldn’t want to miss the chance to pick his disembodied head from the ground.” And off he goes.

Hakuryuu hates the ease with which Judar can just come and go. There’s no agency on his side of… whatever relationship this is. He practices the exercises given by the physical therapist for the recommended amount of time and then some, while his mind wandered on about what actions he can actually take. Any effort to go outside more than absolutely necessary would immediately be deemed suspicious. Any proposal to be involved in hunting Ithnan down would be preposterous. 

He could try some tracking though. In short spurts. He hates to actually take part of Judar’s suggestions but it doesn’t involve actually working with the demon, so he can tolerate it. Hakuryuu rolls up his sleeve so he can take a full look at where his arm ends and the prosthetic begins and takes off the prosthetic, gingerly placing it on the desk. It’s funny how easily one can get used to looking at a stump. It’s almost like there was never a continuation of it in the first place.

Hakuryuu places his hand on it, pressing his fingertips against veins but really feeling for cursed magic. Nothing. Just like while the curse was on him, there’s nothing perceivable no matter how much he tries to hone in and focus on every trace of energy flowing to and from the arm. There’s only natural life coursing through, in small, infinitesimal streams that weave, tangle, and unwind only to interact again with all the other organic threads. 

How in the world did Ithnan curse him? There has to be some kind of masking, something leading him astray. But every perception technique in the book tells him there was never anything in the first place. Only living, breathing threads, all whispering “I am part of you.” 

Perhaps this life is just a lie then. Hakuryuu doesn’t know much about energies beyond distinguishing between the natural and supernatural, he’s never needed to know. That ignorance is likely what Ithnan is exploiting. All of the snakes that rested near him had almost no cursed energy to them, but Hakuryuu just never thought about it because of the obvious demonic presence in the middle of it all. 

This is going to take a lot of research.

Matter is only a manifestation of energy, made seemingly permanent yet just as ethereal as the pulses of power that commanded its existence. Earth, wood, metal, fire, and water are all constantly mutating under the threads of energy. Wood deteriorates into earth at their giggles, fire spreads and consumes at a light blow. That’s the way that natural energy, the energy that has always been and always will be, operates.

Emotion is but an auxiliary property of energy. New Age hipsters that want to sound enlightened with their consumerism would call it “vibrations” but they’re not exactly wrong. Thoughts and emotions are equals as energy, but there’s no “higher” or “lower” vibrations, that’s just trying to set a hierarchy to make happiness seem like the peak of human existence. The only dichotomy that exists is between the natural and supernatural.

The natural threads of energy are the aforementioned ones that operate on their own outside of animate will, taking suggestions from feelings and thoughts and words but never quite dictated, never completely under anyone’s control. Nature does as nature wants in the very end. It’s when nature starts bending down to some will, be it benevolent or malevolent (but most often malevolent), that it dims in color, starts shaking in aberrant rhythms. That’s what makes it visible, that’s what makes it feel off and volatile. That’s what forms the supernatural. 

If there’s never been any traces of the supernatural in Hakuryuu’s arm before it suddenly started to explode in a curse and overwhelm him, that just means that the dormant form must have originated from the opposite type of energy. Perhaps outside of the actual venom, the snake bites left other chemicals that affected his mood without having to use curses, and Ithnan controlled that remotely to suddenly activate a curse when he saw fit? But that doesn’t make sense, since the whole incident happened inside the house so there would be no way of really knowing what Hakuryuu was doing unless Ithnan was also sneaking inside. Maybe it was a timer functions instead, left completely dormant until a specified time and then it would explode no matter what was going on.

Hakuryuu sighs and presses his fingers against his temples. There’s a whole list of hypotheticals that could be run through and all of them could have some validity as an approach, but he’s not going to get an exact answer without more evidence or a direct answer from the demon himself. What he does think is relatively certain is that the snakes themselves are not cursed and therefore whatever was injected into him in those bites are also not cursed. 

Now can he track with that? Technically yes. Will it take a while? Most definitely. But if Hakuryuu has something, it’s determination and time.

 

* * *

Hakuryuu slaps a pile of papers onto Hakuyuu’s desk two days later.

“What is this?” Hakuyuu glances down at the diagrams meticulously drawn on the top paper and the notes jotted down in perfect handwriting and imperfect, rushed margins.

“A means to tracking down that demon, Ithnan.” He tries not to pay any mind to how his older brother is looking at the prosthetic like it might fall off of his arm at any second, even though they measured him twice just in case. “I was thinking about how the curse was completely imperceivable before it was too late. The way that he was able to pull that off isn’t because of some complex masking spell, but because the snakes he uses aren’t cursed. Even though the venom was neutralized, some spit and pieces of fangs stayed and he utilized that to remotely spark a curse at his convenience.”

“...Are you sure about that?” Hakuyuu looks more baffled by the possibility of using such a strategy more than anything. He pulls the pile of papers closer and skims through some of the diagrams and notes that Hakuryuu pored over. 

“It’s a theory. But I got this much based off of it. If it’s correct, you should be able to track the demon and either find him or some cluster of snakes he uses.” Hakuryuu maintains perfect posture as he watches Hakuyuu start taking a deeper look at some of the notes. “If it doesn’t work, then it’s just one less possibility we’ll have to worry about.”

Hakuyuu nods, tracing his finger over the line of words he’s reading as he tends to do to keep his place. “This is good work, Ryuu. Very thorough.”

“Thank you.” Hakuryuu doesn’t remember the last time he heard words like that from his oldest brother. It’s only partly because Hakuyuu’s so busy managing everything and keeping the whole household together. 

“I’ll run this through Kouen and Koumei and then see what we can do about it.” He reads through the last paper and stacks them neatly on the corner, tacking an orange sticky note on top to indicate it’s for priority business. “But I have to ask, how did you learn the demon’s name? You said it was Ithnan? I’ve never heard of that one.”

“I-” Hakuryuu tries to come up with something off the top of his head. Luckily, it ends up easier than it could be. “During the encounter. I must have been too out of it right after to tell you. I’m sorry I let it slip my mind for so long.”

“...That’s fine.”  That’s the hesitation of someone who has lingering doubts but won’t press on it quite yet. Hakuryuu can take that for now. He’ll just have to be more careful later. “Thanks for taking your time with this, hopefully we’ll be able to make good progress with it.” 

“Of course. I’ll leave you to your work now. I’m going to try to cook dinner for everyone again.”

“Don’t strain yourself.” 

“Understood.” It’s pans and ingredients not weapons and ghouls. Hakuryuu goes straight to the kitchen and gets right to cooking to calm himself after two days of obsessing over tracking techniques and old diagrams about energy flows. 

But it’s okay. His brothers and cousins will meet and figure out a way to track Ithnan down and strategize a way to ambush him, take him down for good. He doesn’t need to use Judar. He doesn’t need to be potentially scammed (he’s not sure how that would be possible, but it has to be possible) and there will be one less threat for everyone.

Didn’t he want to bring back a demon’s head with his own hands, though?

He’s almost completely forgotten about that goal. That goal which got him into this entire mess in the first place. Pretending to go along with the debt even though the money is gathering dust in his closet. Sneaking in so many different poisons that it’s a miracle he hasn’t been caught by his brothers. Failing every time and just letting Judar lounge in his room to make the demon more comfortable, dull his senses. It feels so distant now. It didn’t even come to him when Judar last visited, even when the demon made a joke about his whole family dying.

Hakuryuu ends up burning the steak and has to cut off the edges charred black. It would be a waste of food so he eats the burnt parts anyway, chewing the dry, bitter bits slowly as he wonders where his conviction has gone. 


	13. Chapter 13

“How did Hakuryuu ever get those scars in the first place?”

Kougyoku almost chokes on her iced latte. 

“What, you don’t know? I thought you were his family or something.”

“Eugh, of course I know Judar!” She grabs a napkin to wipe her face off even though nothing really got on it in the first place. “But I mean. If Hakuryuu hasn’t told you himself then I’m definitely not allowed to just spill it to you.”

“But I want you to spill the tea to me, Kougyokuuuu-” 

“That just makes it sound like it’s from some petty drama!” She clears her throat and takes a proper sip this time to cool it down. “You’ll have to ask him yourself. If he trusts you to know, then you’ll know. If not, I’m not telling you anything.” She crosses her arms.

Judar swirls the ice cubes in his drink with his straw and feigns a yawn. “That’s so boring. Did you learn what happened to him because he trusted you enough to expose all his deep dark secrets?”

“Well… n-no…” Kougyoku’s arms start to slack. “One of my older brothers told me about it. I wasn’t living in that place until after he got those scars.” She never really asked. Apparently she had been making too many odd glances that Kouen decided it’d be better to just tell her what happened instead of letting her wonder but never ask out of anxiety.

“Then you can tell me right, cause I’m his boyfriend?” Judar practically purrs out the word, even though there should be no way that a person could humanly do that. “God Kougyoku, you know how stiff he is! I’ve told him so many things about my life and he’s barely budged about his dark backstory!”

Did he really? Judar talks to her like she’s the only one he can go to, and it would only make sense to hide a bit about yourself after all those bad relationships. Kougyoku won’t question it for now. “He doesn’t like to talk about himself. You’ve got to respect that.”

“So you’re not going to tell me anything? Not even the tiniest hint?” Judar pouts. “Man this sucks, my appetite completely gone even though I barely ate today.” Kougyoku’s almost afraid to know what his food situation is, considering how skinny he is. 

“...Okay I’ll just say that it happened when he was really little. I think around five or six? It was a big incident and he got hit the worst.” If you don’t count dying, but that’s definitely way too personal info for her to be releasing to Judar in a place like this.

“That’s about the vaguest information you could give me.” Judar’s face falls flat.

“Doesn’t matter, I’m not telling you anything more than that!” She’s got to be the one to draw out boundaries in this relationship. “How have you and Hakuryuu been recently anyway?” She may or may not have tried to listen to them as she was walking away from that chocolatier but she got just about nothing.

“Huh? We’ve been good, like the whole choking thing never happened.” Judar shrugs. “Not much else to it. I’m just kinda waiting for Hakuryuu to get used to that new arm of his. Things aren’t nearly as fun with just one arm.”

...Ignoring what he just mentioned at the end, Kougyoku nods. “That’s good. Did you two talk about that though? If he just brushed it aside I swear to god.”

“Yeah, yeah. Got that resolved all nice and easy with a bow on top.” Judar looks upwards like he’s trying to remember something. “Way better than all my other exes, most of the time they just try to say it’s all my fault. Used to think that meant I was just into men who were like my mom.” He shudders. “Thank god Hakuryuu’s not like that.”

“Yeah…” Hakuryuu would never be like that, right? Right. But at the same time, she never thought he would be the type to choke his boyfriend over the stove. If there wasn’t such an awkward tension between the two of them at the moment, she’d be trying to get to know him better and maybe point him in the right direction. 

“Stop looking so worried, you already got wrinkles forming on your face.”

“H-huh?” Kougyoku pats her face. “No I’m not, I’m really strict on my skincare, you know!”

“Hard to see it with all that makeup you cake on. Learn from an expert.” 

“I don’t have anything to learn from you! Your style doesn’t mesh with mine at all anyway.” 

“Yeah right, you look like you could benefit from a couple beginner tutorials.” Judar takes a long sip of his drink and frowns, looking at the light pink hue of the beverage. Strange. It tasted a lot better when he came here with Hakuryuu, had an extra layer of complexity to it and everything. Maybe the drink just tastes simpler because he’s hanging out with a simple person. Except drinks don’t really work like that, do they.

Kougyoku’s arguing and asserting that her makeup is actually good (yeah right), but Judar’s only half listening, consistently sipping away at the peach lemonade until it’s all gone. No, it definitely tasted a lot cheaper than when he had it with Hakuryuu, and he’s at least eighty percent sure that this is the same place and the same order. On the topic of Hakuryuu, he hasn’t replied about working together to kill the fuck out of Ithnan. 

That’s when he remembers Hakuryuu doesn’t have any way to contact him outside of the visits he does make. Shit. He didn’t think about that. 

“I don’t care what you say, your makeup still sucks.” He replies as if he was listening. “Anyway, do you have Hakuryuu’s number?”

Kougyoku blinks. “What?”

“Uhh, I told you right? Had to get a new phone because my old one got completely wrecked.” More like he never had a phone before, or know how they worked, but those are minor differences. “I forgot to tell him I changed numbers. You’ve got his number in your contacts, right? Add him on mine.” He hands his phone to Kougyoku so she doesn’t have to know how he’s admittedly still a little slow at it.

“Alright…” She takes the phone carefully, as if there might be some prank to it. There isn’t, of course, but she’s still looking unnecessarily cautious while adding the contact info in. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Judar sticks the phone in his pocket. He’s gonna have to call Hakuryuu later, as much as he hates how phones tend to buzz with static when he’s using them. But if he does something more convenient like send a message by crow, he might just kill it. So he’s going to have to sink to the modern methods.

He cuts off the little playdate with Kougyoku short and tries calling Hakuryuu first thing once he’s back out in the streets. No answer. Huh. He tries again but with no luck. Third time maybe? Nope. Is Hakuryuu just going to ignore him? Like Judar would let that happen. He’s about to call a fourth time when he bumps into someone.

“Hey watch it-” Judar blinks at the sight.

“Hey Judar, I’ve been looking for you.” A familiar smile and even more familiar tired eyes. Her boytoy’s right behind her too, as usual. That’s the thing about being able to live for centuries to millennia, makes it hard to actually change for better or for worse.

“Oh. Dunya. What do you want?” 

Dunya stays smiling even though Judar’s anything but happy. “Oh, Isaac and I just wanted to talk to you for a brief moment, that should be okay, right? You do owe us.” 

Ah yeah. Judar wishes he forgot. “Sure.”

 

* * *

“Hey! Why the fuck were you ignoring me!”

Hakuryuu rubs his eyes open to see Judar hovering over him. Literally. That’s the first time he’s seen the demon use flight magic. 

“...The sun’s not even up yet.” He’s too tired to even pretend to be angry that Judar’s broken in at this point.

“The sun was up when I called you three times yesterday, where’s your excuse now?”

Hakuryuu grabs the prosthetic from the nightstand and swings it at Judar so the other would stop being so up close to his face and boisterous. “What… in the world are you going on about?”

“I called you. On the phone. Three fucking times does your phone not work or did Kougyoku give me a fake?”

Thoughts are starting to actually assemble in Hakuryuu’s head now, pained as they may be. He looks up at the dark outline of Judar’s head, the dimmest light coming out from the window and reflecting on Judar’s jewelry. “...You have a phone?”

“Yeah, I’m getting caught up with all the weird tools you people are using nowadays. So why didn’t you respond?”

“...So that was you.” Hakuryuu rubs his eyes and puts the prosthetic on. “I don’t take calls if I don’t recognize the number, so I assumed it was some robocall.”

“The fuck is a robocall, actually no, why didn’t you know it was me?”

Hakuryuu did not get his sleep disrupted for something so stupid. “When you called I only saw the number and not your name, so I thought it was a marketer. I’ll add you in my contacts later, now will you leave?”

“No.”

God. “Why not, what is it now?”

Judar stops floating and sits down on the bed to look at Hakuryuu eye to eye, expression suddenly stone cold. “Are you going to work with me to kill Ithnan or not.”

“I thought I told you no.”

“Yeah, because of your weird exorcist pride or whatever. But listen.” Judar leans in closer and Hakuryuu does his best to look unfazed. “We’re on a time limit here to kill this bastard, unless you want to deal with a much larger problem.”

“What do you mean?” Hakuryuu kind of wishes that Judar would turn on the light so he could get a better grasp at the expression on the other’s face, try to decode what Judar really means beyond the odd sense of urgency in his voice. 

“Ithnan’s trying to summon others in his faction. The strongest one, actually.” 

Hakuryuu shivers when the temperature drops suddenly, cold air biting at whatever little drowsiness is left. “Are you sure about this? How did you find out?”

“Of course I’m sure about this. Look, if Ithnan can almost kill you, then if his plan works out, all of you can probably die in a heartbeat. And I’ll probably be thrown back into hell for another couple centuries at least.”

He… actually sounds serious. “Okay. I get that you’re serious. What I don’t get is why you want me specifically.” As much as Hakuryuu would hate to admit it, he has nowhere near the same power as Judar or Ithnan. Humans in general can only do so much with anything stronger than the weakest tier of demons.

“What, you don’t want in on vengeance?” He says as if it’s the most obvious thing. “Also you exorcists can do some things that we can’t, which might come in handy.”

“How so?”

“...I don’t know, that’s for you to figure out.” And for a second Hakuryuu thought that Judar might have had a strategic side to him. 

“You’re doing yourself a disservice by clearly having no idea what you’re doing.”

“Well how am I supposed to know when exorcists keep trying to shield that kind of knowledge away from us, huh? Bet you got all sorts of weird binding spells and reflection wards and the like.” Judar snaps. “Whatever. If you want to just lay back and literally let all hell loose then so be it. I’ll be cooped up back home by then so you can have fun dying a gruesome death. I’ll make sure to say hi when I find whatever punishment you’re doomed in for eternity.”

“Judar…” But the demon jumps off of the bed and goes straight out of the window without another word. Hakuryuu was never sure if he had seen Judar upset until now, beyond momentary flickers of short temper. 

Hakuryuu adds Judar to his phone contacts and stares at the screen, lost in thought. It’s 5:12am, there’s plenty of time to think about what to do.

He forces himself to go through the day, from all of the stretches and exercises that the physical therapist instructed him to do every hour or so, checking in on Hakuei’s condition, talking with the rest of his family about the whole Ithnan situation. He keeps his lips pressed at the meeting, only talking when necessary, since how in the world is he supposed to slide in the information that Ithnan is planning to summon something more powerful than himself without looking suspicious? There’s no feasible way for Hakuryuu to have gotten this information without some contact outside or sneaking around, both of which would only lead to scolding and generally not getting anything done. So he bit his tongue, hoping that the existing urgency would be sufficient to take action.

But does he want them to take action? Right now? Hakuei is basically out of commission, and there’s no way they’ll let him join. Apparently Kougyoku has been getting better, but she’s still basically tagging behind Kouha and Hakuren instead of being able to fight by herself. Koumei doesn’t even really fight the majority of the time, he’s mainly been working in the back with analytics and developing new tools. It’s not the worst condition they could be in, but it’s not the best either. 

His mind inevitably wanders to Judar. He appears to be in good condition, though there’s no way for Hakuryuu to really know. He supposes that in the utilitarian sense, it would be better for one other person to potentially get hurt than six.

Hakuryuu finds himself staring at the phone screen again after dinner when he’s locked back in his room. “Judar” is written right near the top of the screen, one button away from what would just be a temporary alliance, but feels like a sealing of fate. There’s no point in further questioning what’s holding him back. He takes a deep breath and presses the call button.

Judar takes much longer to respond than expected. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Is all he can manage even though he feels like everything could just spill at once.

“Did you call just to flirt with me or did you come to a decision?” It’d be teasing if it didn’t sound so serious, a tinge of irritation still in Judar’s voice.

Alright Hakuryuu, just say it. There’s no need to get worried about it, it’s only that words like these are almost always binding to a demon. “...Just so you know, I’m only agreeing to work with you on this one thing. I’ll work with you to deal with Ithnan, you can’t bind me to anything else, understand?”

“...What, you thought I was gonna try to scam you and rope you into selling your soul?” Judar laughs, like none of that ever happened. “I only ask for things upfront.”

“So is this happening or not?” 

“Hey, I was the one asking that just a second ago. But alright, finding the fucker should be easy. Let’s go.”

“Right now?” 

“Uh, yeah.” 

“No not right now. We have to make some kind of preparations, I doubt you have anything planned in your head besides find him and charge.” Hakuryuu finds himself pacing back and forth in the room. “If you want me to do anything like binding or the like, we’re going to need to strategize this somehow.”

Hakuryuu hears an exaggerated groan from the other side. “Fiiine, taking all the fun out of an ambush, huh? You’re back in your room, right? You always are. I’ll be there in a bit.” And Judar hangs up. Hopefully that gives Hakuryuu a little bit of time to start looking through some books.

Judar comes back in ten minutes later, drinking a peach milk soda. “So what are you “strategizing” for?”

Hakuryuu flips through a couple pages, trying to look for something that might be relevant. “Well right now I’m trying to look for possible binding circles that I can use, plus anything else that might be useful considering my… compromised position.”

“Huh? Oh you mean this?” Judar prods the prosthetic. “I thought you could move it around and everything.”

“Yeah, but it’s still not up to speed with how well I’d like it to move. Apparently it tends to take a few months before it can really move like a normal arm.” Not to mention the random phantom pains that fade in and out that keep distracting him. It’s negligible when it comes to doing his studies, but the split second delay in reaction time could prove fatal in battle.

“Oh? Lemme see.” Judar puts his hands on the prosthetic, running down from the palm to the length of the forearm, then drawing patterns on it with his finger. Wisps of smoke gather around and start seeping inside the arm. 

“...W-what are you doing?” This arm is supposed to be resilient to curses, if the healers could be trusted.

“Casting a spell, isn’t it obvious?” Judar lets go and the arm’s practically brewing with magic. Now there’s no way Hakuryuu can even exit the room without being suspicious. Judar’s practically cut the amount of preparation he can do by half. “Now it should be fast and strong. Stronger than your other arm by far.”

Hakuryuu tries clenching his fist. It feels different for sure, in that way that’s hard to describe since there’s no way you can feel energetic in just one part of your body, let alone one that’s not organic, but it’s there, pulsing, full of magic that substitutes life. Full of strength. 

“What are the limitations of this?”

“Hm, nothing really. It lasts until I call it off, easy as that.” 

“I see.” Hakuryuu looks back at his book, reading through a description of a spell. “Okay, I think this could potentially be something we can use to our advantage…”


	14. Chapter 14

“So what made you decide?”

Hakuryuu and Judar are walking down the street, Judar holding some dark energy shaped in the form of a compass needle that’s guiding them to where Ithnan should be.

“...It’s better if only I risk myself than my entire family.”

Judar smirks. “That’s what you’re telling yourself? I guess humans need to make up some kind of lie to excuse themselves, even if it sucks.”

“I’m not here for your psychoanalytical takes.”

“You’re not, so we should walk faster to skewer this snake fucker already.”

Hakuryuu speeds up easily and now Judar’s the one that’s behind. “You say that but I was just slowing down to match your pace.”

“Eugh, it’s not my fault you can’t teleport and don’t even want to try it.” Judar huffs, trying to keep up.

“I don’t want to risk any accident before we even get there and you said he shouldn’t be that far off anyway.” 

“Yeah, for teleporting!” 

“What part of you thought that I would just be okay with you teleporting me to god knows where?” The people who pass by stare at them but Hakuryuu’s gotten way too used to it by this point. If strangers didn’t have a weird conversation to balk at, they’d just fix their eyes on Hakuryuu’s face and Judar’s overall look. 

“Well, you were fine with the arm? So naturally teleporting would be the next step?” The black compass needle shakes and changes directions so Judar tugs at Hakuryuu’s shirt and motions for him to turn. 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Hakuryuu huffs. “Anyway, at least we have time to go over things.”

“You already went over it like eleven times.” Judar whines, still struggling to keep up with the other’s pace.

“And I’ll go over it a twelfth time.” So he does in low whispers, though he’s not sure if Judar’s even listening to him. If not, at least it can serve as a reminder for himself and a test for all of the details. 

“Hm. Wait, Hakuryuu.” Judar stops in the middle of the explanation, standing still and looking down at something on the ground. “We gotta go down.”

“Down?” Hakuryuu actually follows Judar’s gaze and it leads down to your everyday city manhole cover. “...We have to go down there.”

“Looks like it.” Judar sighs. “Eugh, I don’t wanna pull Ithnan’s head out of his body if he’s gonna be all stinky, if  _ I’m _ gonna be that stinky.”

“You’re really spoiled for a demon.” Hakuryuu squats down to pick it up and practically flicks it aside using the augmented prosthetic arm. “Unless Hell is more luxurious than people make it out to be.”

“It is if you have a clearly superior status like me. You think I actually touch any of that filthy shit they use for punishments down there? They reuse their frying oil for everyone that comes down that’s billions of people! Disgusting. You should go first.”

“What, no, you should go in first if anything. You’re the one with the directions and you probably have something to repel the sewer water anyway.” Judar probably just wants to see him suffer more.

Judar pouts but starts going down the ladder. Hakuryuu follows not long after, turning the flashlight of his phone on and keeping it in his white shirt pocket before dragging the manhole cover over them. This is probably the worst day to wear white. Judar jumps down after a point but there’s no splash, Hakuryuu tries to look with the flashlight and sees that he’s just floating to avoid all the water and scum even though there is a walkway for the people who work to maintain these sewers. Spoiled showoff.

“Don’t fly off too far, I need to see where you’re going.” Rats scurry away from the sudden bright beam of light disrupting their daily routine.

“What, do you need me to light myself up too, be your nightlight?” Judar makes sparks of lightning flicker around him, but with the way electricity is, the lights are gone as soon as they appear.

“I can sense where you are even when it is dark, but I don’t want you flying off ahead of me.” The flashlight is more for everything else in the sewer so Hakuryuu doesn’t step on a dead rat or fall into the sewer water. “Now where are we going?”

“This way.” Judar leads the way, hovering over all the filth, while Hakuryuu follows behind without a word. The sewage system twists and turns without end, but Judar stops them after about fifteen minutes of sludging through and getting a little too used to the stench that’s no doubt going to cling to them for the rest of the day.

“You said you wanted me to stop you a certain distance from him, right? Go do your thing.” Judar sits cross legged in the middle of the air. 

“I was worried you might forget.” Hakuryuu pulls out a large piece of chalk and immediately gets to drawing a line around the wall. “...I’m going to need your help to reach up to the ceiling.” 

“And I thought this was your job.” Judar huffs and picks Hakuryuu up by the waist.

“W-wait what are you- Can’t you just levitate me?” Hakuryuu almost drops the chalk and quickly rubs off the zigzag he accidentally made, fixing it with a completely straight line. Judar rises higher slowly so that Hakuryuu can draw a straight line going all around the circular wall.

“Nah.” That lying asshole, he’s just being a little shit about it. They go all the way around to the other side.

“Wait don’t let go yet, take me back to the ceiling.”

“You just wanted to be dropped a moment ago, now you want me to keep holding you?”

“Shut up and do it before I kick you into the water.”

“You’d fall too.”

“I don’t care.”

“Fine.” Judar floats them up to the ceiling and Hakuryuu gets busy writing the inscriptions he had to memorize in five minutes before they left, making sure that every stroke looked just right even though his handwriting looked more obscured with the sheer width of the chalk. It took longer than Hakuryuu would like, considering that the entire length of the semicircle had to be inscribed in order to work properly and every second felt like five with how uncomfortably close Judar is and how Judar could pinch or just drop him at any moment. But he didn’t, fortunately, and Hakuryuu was finally let go on the floor of the other side.

“Why did you have to do that.”

“I’m already using energy holding myself up, I gotta save if for when we fight Ithnan.” Hakuryuu doesn’t know enough about Judar’s magical capabilities to tell if that’s a lie or not, so he just drops the topic instead and starts chanting in a whisper. Judar moves to his side of the cutoff and watches as the chalk glows with a dim, sky blue light. 

“Am I gonna be stuck here forever because of that?” He asks after Hakuryuu’s done chanting and starts walking again.

“Nonsense. It’s tied to Ithnan’s name specifically, it’ll only affect him and those bound to him.” Which should hopefully count any backup snakes that Ithnan may try to summon like last time. 

“Not bad.” Judar whistles and lays down as he floats along leisurely. 

Less than a minute in they hear the sound of something falling into the water with a splash. Judar glances down at the murky ripples it makes below him. “Guess we’re here.” 

Whatever’s under the water starts to move, making the sewer water splash onto the concrete floor, reaching out to Hakuryuu’s shoes. But getting a stain on a pair of shoes is the least of his worries, and the slow rise of a dark mound, stretching longer and longer whenever it looks like it’s reached its end, reminds him of what they have to face. It’s not until its yellow slit eyes open and a forked tongue flickers that it really comes into the form of a snake, one fifty times too large to be normal. 

Judar cackles at the sight of it. “Haven’t seen you looking like that in forever!” All the sewer water freezes in an instant and ice starts to crawl up the length of the basilisk which Hakuryuu assumes to be Ithnan in a different form. “But I guess this is gonna be the last time too!” 

“There’s nowhere to run, either.” Hakuryuu pulls out his knife and extends the handle into a full guandao. It still feels too short for a monster like this, but at least he has an ally on his side now.

“I don’t need to run.” Ithnan somehow says without opening his mouth. “You should be the ones trying to run while you can.”

“Not if you’re going to summon her.” Judar makes a motion with his hand to make the ice expand all the way to the neck of the basilisk demon. “I’ll tear your guts apart one by one.”

Ithnan laughs. Hakuryuu keeps his stance, blade of his guandao pointed at the demon. But Ithnan doesn’t move. In fact, he doesn’t look the slightest bit bothered by all the ice that’s keeping him practically immobilized. Almost like this is a…

“...Judar. I don’t think we should be here.” He says in a low voice.

“What are you talking about?” Electricity’s jumping around the walls. “Are we here to kill this bitch or not?”

“I’ll just come back, you know this.” There’s a cocky lilt to Ithnan’s voice, and even though he can’t smirk, his forked tongue flickers. “How many times has it been, somewhere up in the seventies?”

“Not if Dunya and Isaac are pulling their weight.” Judar shocks Ithnan with lightning strong enough to fry any man alive, but a fifty foot basilisk is no man. “They’ve been hunting down every last one of your hosts and other weird tricks you got.”

A moment of silence. Then a deep chuckle as the head shakes to free itself from the ice. “Fine. Kill me then. Give me your best shot. What can a little spark do to someone like me?”

Hakuryuu takes a step forward. “Judar, there’s something off about this-”

“Fuck you! Like I haven’t fried you inside out all those other times! I’ll do it another seventy times if I have to, but I’d rather you just die!” Judar’s completely ignoring him.

Ithnan’s tongue plays with the air. “I’m still breathing. Looks like you’re rusty from all those years locked up in that cushy inner palace-” Whatever he was going to say next gets garbled by the next shock, twice as strong as the last one. 

Throughout all this Hakuryuu just stands there. How is he supposed to interfere with this. One misstep could lead to all the lightning redirecting to him even if Judar doesn’t intend on it, and he has no idea why Ithnan’s trying to prod Judar so, just that it’s overwhelmingly obvious that something is suspicious about all this. 

Judar keeps shocking the basilisk demon again and again until the slit eyes start going hazy, until the words start to blur with each other. Only then does Judar prepare a giant, sharp shard of ice, ready to be lodged into Ithnan’s throat. 

“Judar!” The demon actually looks down this time.

“What is it? I’m almost done here.”

“Don’t kill him yet.” Hakuryuu feels absurd just saying that.

“What? Have you lost it? We have him right here, it’ll be easy!”

“Too easy. There’s something fishy about this. Just let me bind him so he can’t use any more magic and then we can go back and figure this out.”

The snake laughs even with his head lolling to the side. “Humans are so merciful. Do you think someone like me can get a second chance, even after stealing your arm?”

“It has nothing to do with this.” Hakuryuu pulls out a talisman from his pocket that he had been bringing, just in case immobilizing was necessary. “You’re up to something.”

“Killing him now is the same as killing him later, but better!” Judar snaps, full row of sharp teeth bared where it has never shown itself to Hakuryuu before. 

“Judar has the heart to spare me, huh…” Ithnan mumbles. “Is this how you’re showing me you’re grateful for how I raised you? You’re like a nephew of mine, or maybe even a s-”

The ice lodges nicely into his throat. 

“What did you just do!” Hakuryuu yells.

“Kill a demon, that’s all.” Judar floats over to the dead Ithnan and snaps his fingers. The ice splits into two and fly in opposite directions, cutting the head off cleanly. Judar’s hand reaches into the eye socket, scooping out the serpentine eye larger than his palm and bites into it like the way he’d bite into a peach. Hakuryuu stands there, frozen.

“...Tastes even worse than I thought.” Judar sticks his tongue out but keeps going, forcing it down quickly and gouging out the second one too.

“Wh… what are you doing…”

“Hm?” Judar looks over, half an eyeball in hand, clear liquid dripping down his hand onto the top of the basilisk head. “I’m taking some of his power for myself. Everybody does this.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of that…” Hakuryuu wants to look away but he won’t. Judar will just make fun of him if he does, so he watches as the demon takes a bite, listens to how it squishes and how wet and slimy the chewing is, bites the inside of his cheek while the eye that looks like its still staring at him disappears, one chomp after another. 

This is who he decided to ally with, even if only for a day.

Judar shudders after his last bite. “See?” His voice comes out too breathily, “Nothing wrong happened. Didn’t even need you around in the end, isn’t that nice-”

The floor starts shaking under them. Hakuryuu takes a step back to balance himself and looks up at the sound of cracking ice. The entire tower of ice that surrounded Ithnan’s body starts to crack, but not before the actual scales underneath start to glow purple and the air is suddenly too thick to breathe in.

“A summoning?” Hakuryuu covers his mouth but it’s still just as hard to inhale.

“Oh no-” Judar flies down to grab Hakuryuu, force field activating just in time to guard the impact and even then it sent them flying down several feet. He looks back at the source of the explosion, barely lifting himself up from Hakuryuu’s body. “Fuck, fuck I can’t believe this…” 

Hakuryuu’s not exactly sure what Judar’s in disbelief about, all he can see is thick black smog with flickers of purple, all cursed energy that looks older than Judar has ever used, stronger than what either Judar or Ithnan has ever done. 

But the low laughter of a woman’s voice left shivers down his spine and a burning sensation all around his scars. 

There’s a pulse of energy that suggests that Judar has reinforced the force field with even more power. “...Where are you, hag? Show yourself!” 

It’s the first time Hakuryuu’s heard a lack of conviction in Judar’s voice. It still came out strong and loud, like Judar always does, but there’s a crack and a crack is all Hakuryuu needs to get worried over what lurks within the smog.

No answer. So Judar yells again. “Hey! Didn’t you want to see me? I’m right here!” 

It’s silent, but Judar doesn’t move either. Hakuryuu would push him off in any other situation.

“Do you recognize what’s in there?” Hakuryuu asks. Before Judar could answer, all the smog blows past them and flies down the sewage system, leaving only bits of Ithnan’s corpse soaked in sewer muck. 

Judar hops off of Hakuryuu and finally lets the force field go. “...She just left, huh.”

“What was that?” Hakuryuu finds himself basically repeating the same question. Judar looks down at the floor, expression empty.

“...A demon. One of the older one, maybe even the oldest.” He turns and walks over to Ithnan’s basilisk head, still somehow intact aside from the eye gouging. He tosses it to Hakuryuu.

“How did this stay intact?” 

“That was pure curse energy, you could see that. Doesn’t matter if it hits a dead demon, but if it got you it would’ve corrupted your soul on impact.” He kicks a random bone into the water.

“I see.” Hakuryuu puts the head in the black garbage bag he prepared just to bring something to show proof of death. “...Thank you then, for guarding me.”

Judar shrugs. “Whatever. Let’s get out of here, I hate the stench of this place.”

 

* * *

Hakuryuu rings the doorbell and this time, Kouha answers.

“About time they got the pizz- oh my god. What the fuck happened with you did you fall into a liquified garbage dump?” Kouha pinches his nose.

“Close enough.” Hakuryuu doesn’t have the time for this. “Is everyone at home?”

“Nnyeah.” Kouha replies all nasally.

“Good, bring all of them down. I have something to tell them after I shower.” And probably throw out everything he’s wearing right now.

“Eugh fine, but can you at least throw that trash away?” Kouha points at the black garbage bag slung over Hakuryuu’s shoulder.

“It’s important. I’ll tell you later.” Kouha groans at that but lets Hakuryuu in, shutting the door and going out to open all the windows like a brat.

Hakuryuu tosses the bag onto the floor in his room and tosses all of his clothes into the trash bin before he steps into the shower. He really didn’t end up doing anything there, did he. Judar let him keep Ithnan’s head for the sake of having something to show, as if Hakuryuu single handedly killed the demon, as if he was able to do anything without the help of a demon. The hot water doesn’t do much to relieve him, besides slowly get rid of all the stench with the help of two rounds of shampoo and body wash.

The stench tries to cling right back on to him as he carries the trash bag, trying to make itself home between the threads of his fresh change of clothes. But he can get rid of it as soon as he’s done. Down in the living room, all of his siblings and cousins are sitting around the couches and the other chairs that encircle the space. Hakuryuu stands right in the middle.

“What’s this all about?” Kouen speaks up first since Hakuyuu’s expression is unwilling to move. 

“Everyone was being too slow about taking action against Ithnan, so I took the initiative against him.” Hakuryuu looks straight at his older brothers as he opens up the bag. Hakuyuu’s expression is unreadable but Hakuren’s frown speaks for the both of them.

He grabs the head and lifts it from the bag for everyone to see the disfigured head of a basilisk, eyes torn out, dripping black from the sockets, jaw slack with forked tongue barely hanging on.

“Here he is.”


	15. Chapter 15

There’s been a noticeable change in the air ever since Hakuryuu displayed Ithnan’s head to everyone. No one outwardly protested that Hakuryuu  _ didn’t _ do anything, but he doubts that his family just took it at face value. Especially when he glanced at Kouen, Hakuyuu, and Hakuren. They know something is up, but Hakuryuu doubts they’d be able to figure out that he worked with Judar if only because of how unthinkable it is. Funny how the most unspeakable act for an exorcist turns out to be the most helpful for getting what he wants. 

Judar was right. Hakuryuu is different from the rest of his family, ever since he barely lived with scars that refuse to forget while the rest had wounds that eventually moved on, no matter how painful. The only way that Hakuryuu can move on is to face his issues head on, to run directly into the fire that wants to end him. 

When Hakuryuu goes downstairs to make himself an extra cup of coffee, he locks eyes with Hakuyuu. Neither of them say anything. Hakuyuu stares a little too long as the coffee machine whirrs in the background. 

“You’re not hurt anywhere?”

Hakuryuu takes his mug from the coffee machine when it’s finished. “No. Like I said, I had to outsmart him to kill him.”

“Right.” He might as well have said “bullshit” with that tone. “Are you planning on going anywhere tonight?”

“No, I’m probably just going to read.” Hakuryuu’s not lying. There’s not that much he can do at the moment now that Ithnan is dead, even if the explosion and the summoning of another demon has put another set of worries in his mind. But even based on that brief moment, he could tell that’s a problem of a different magnitude. 

“Ah, I see. Kouen and I will be heading out and probably won’t return until it’s very late. Just wanted to let you know.”  And the interaction ended just like that. 

Hakuryuu goes back to his room. He’s not dumb enough to head out just because Hakuyuu will be gone - they most certainly set up someting to know if he leaves or not. So be it then, he doesn’t need to go anywhere. He calls Judar first thing.

“Hey.” Judar picks up on the first ring.

“Hey, what are we going to do about this.”

There’s a pause on the other side. “...I’ll be there in a second.” Judar hangs up before Hakuryuu can protest but this time he really does appear just half a minute later.

“If you can get over here so quickly, why didn’t you come as fast last time?” Hakuryuu drinks his coffee. There’s too much on his mind to be impressed with Judar’s transportation speed.

“I just wanted some food on the way last time.” The way his lips press together show that he’s a lot more serious this time too. “Anyway, you wanted to talk.”

“Yeah.” Hakuryuu sets the coffee on his desk. “First of all, what was that demon? I need to know all the details if we want to do anything about it.”

Judar lies back on Hakuryuu’s bed and exhales. “...She’s gone by a bunch of different names as time went on. Does Arba ring any bell?”

“...No.” It feels like it should. It feels familiar yet foreign, but ultimately Hakuryuu has no real knowledge of that name.

“Okay, I think the Christians called her Lillith-”

“Lillith?” Hakuryuu almost chokes on his coffee. “You’re saying Ithnan summoned Lillith? Mother of demons?”

“Yeah, yeah I know all the titles.” Judar waves his hand and stares up at the ceiling. “The good thing is that we know that Ithnan’s dead for sure. The summoning probably required a large sacrifice and I checked with Dunya, they wiped out all the other spare bodies. But...” He pauses, lost in thought. “...Never mind, I was never good with summoning rituals anyway.”

“What were you thinking?” Hakuryuu brings his chair closer so he could actually read Judar’s expression.

“Well. You’re the exorcist, you probably know these things better than me.” Judar crosses his arms. “But to bring out a demon as strong as that, don’t you need people who have a connection to them, or some other tools to act as a connection? I mean. I’m obviously one but Ithnan doesn’t really count because he died… Is that enough?”

“It depends on the demon. I could look into it-”

“Nah, don’t.”

“What?”

“What does it matter anyway? She’s out. And she’s going to stir all kinds of shit.” Judar sighs. “If we aren’t gonna be talking about that, then there’s no reason for me to stay here.”

Usually Hakuryuu’s the one trying to get Judar to leave. “...Fair enough. Since you know her, you should have some idea of what weaknesses she has that we can exploit, right?”

“Nope.”

“No?” Hakuryuu could look for something himself but researching ways to deal with the demon that is literally Lillith is like trying to find ways to fight against Satan. 

“If I knew about any weaknesses, I would’ve used it already.” Judar looks straight at Hakuryuu. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. The best solution I ever got was running away.”

So that's why he's here. On Earth, that is. "...How long have you dealt with her?"

"Too long to bother talking about."

"I see." Hakuryuu gets it. It means Judar doesn't want to talk about it, and there is no reason to talk about it if there's nothing useful that can be extracted from that experience. He's just being nosy. "I'll try to see what I can find. There should be some way to at least put her back where she came from."

"Okay." Judar stays on his bed with no sign of moving anywhere, so Hakuryuu goes downstairs and fetches a couple Christian demonology books to start things off. Judar's still laying there when he comes back, so he just lets the demon loiter. The silence stopped bothering Hakuryuu a long time ago.

Three hours later and there's nothing for him to go off on. No one ever talks about how to deal with the greatest demons. Sure, there will be talk of charms and amulets to help dispel their influence, but that's the influence they can project all the way from their throne in hell. No one ever sees these demons in person. If they do, they never lived long enough to write about it. Hakuryuu glances back at Judar. The demon's still laying down on the bed, splayed out and clearly ruminating on something.

"Are you going to be laying there all day?"

"Do you want me to stay with you for the night?" Judar smirks as if he wasn't spacing out just a moment ago.

"If you can think of remarks like that, you should help me research."

"Like any of those books would have anything I don't already know."

"You don't know everything about exorcisms."

Judar pouts and pulls up a chair to the desk. He stares at the page Hakuryuu's looking at with a blank stare.

"What, found new facts already?"

"No," Judar sounds like he's clearly lying. "This is all baby stuff."

"Is it now." Hakuryuu points at a random bullet point about using readings to determine what demon is lurking in your shadow. "Like this, you already knew this?"

"Sure, why wouldn't I?"

"Oh really?" Hakuryuu blocks the passage with his hand. "What was it, where did you learn about it?"

Hakuryuu figures Judar would at least be able to come up with a quick summary and then make up some bad excuse about where he initially learned it, but there's nothing.

"...Did you even read what that said?"

"Yeah."

"Did you… forget what it said?"

"It wasn't really that, just uh…" Judar frowns. “You didn’t give me enough time to read it all.” 

That was more than enough time to read the short bullet point, and Judar was clearly staring at the words instead of being distracted by anything else. “What do you mean you didn’t have enough time to read it all? You had a whole ten seconds.”

“...I’m not used to reading things in this language yet.” Judar finally lets it out. “Speaking’s easy cause you can just cast a spell for easy translation but the letters are different and then you gotta translate the sound to my actual language and it’s a bitch.”

“Oh.” Hakuryuu didn’t expect that. Not the language issues, but the relatively short time it took for Judar to admit it. “...What can you read then?”

“Cuneiform.” Wow he’s old. “And I also picked up some of that old ritual Chinese.”

“You mean like this?” Hakuryuu pulls out a simple protection talisman from his desk drawer.

“What the fuck is that.” Judar looks at it closer. “No this is something else. I think that one is… that one means wood right?”

“No it means fire.”

“Fuck. Well anyway that’s not the type of writing I was talking about, that has to be some kind of new exorcist shit.”

“I didn’t know you were that old.” Hakuryuu thinks for a second and then pulls up an image of oracle bone script.

“Yeah, that, that’s the thing I was talking about.”

“This was used in like, 1200 BC.”

“What year is it now?”

“2019 AD.”

“Oh.” Now Hakuryuu knows that he’s been listening to the whining of what’s basically an ancient artifact. It makes interesting trivia, but it still does nothing for the actual problem that they need to solve. 

“Anyway, can you do anything to get more intel on this Arba and what could be done about her?”

Judar glances out the window. “...I mean, there are some people I can start questioning, for one.”

“Then go do that. Let me know if you find anything.” It’s pitch black outside now but demons don’t sleep and Hakuryuu doesn’t need to sleep if that means they can find something useful. He’ll probably be up all night reading through the remainder of this stack of books, and if he can’t find anything in the Christian demonology then he’ll have to start looking into Jewish mysticism and then try to find parallel figures in other cultures to see if there’s any hints. 

“Fine, I’ll go bother Dunya and her boytoy. See you whenever.” Judar opens the window and dives down. 

Meanwhile Hakuryuu goes down to make himself more coffee when it’s already well past 10pm. The worries start to steep in as the machine drips the refill into his mug. Judar seems to know Lillith… Arba, on a personal level. In fact, it seems like he has an extensive history with her, which is only more concerning. Judar’s relative age only adds to that. Hakuryuu initially assumed that he might’ve been born during the early medieval era, but ancient demons that still live today and with such power are… threatening, to say the least. So long as they have a common enemy, this shouldn’t be too bad. But can Hakuryuu really trust that they are allied? They’re technically not bound to anything at this point, anything could go. 

He brings the coffee back upstairs and gets back to his books. If he happens to find anything that might describe Judar along the way, then he’ll keep that information to himself. 

 

* * *

 

“Any updates?” Kouen asks as they drive into the inner city. 

“I’ve got a grasp on what kind of demon it is, but no specific name.” Hakuyuu looks down at what he jotted down on his notepad. “It’s definitely outside of Ryuu’s caliber. The type of magic that we’re dealing with is old - quite possibly originating from Babylonia.” 

Kouen sighs. “I knew there would be more to it than Ithnan. The whole incident seemed fishy from the start.”

“Yeah…” Hakuyuu gazes out the window, watching the storelights and people pass by. How easy it would be to just live like that, to have just a simple list of errands like grocery shopping to deal with before coming home. “But I don’t think Ryuu have been cursed or tainted yet, thankfully.”

“That demon must either be really smart or really stupid to make such a move though.” 

“Perhaps.” But that’s why they checked if they had all the supplies they needed four times over before departing.

“Are we there yet?” Kouha whines from the backseat and kicks his feet up on Hakuren’s lap. Not that they get to stay there, because Hakuren immediately pushes them back down.

“Stop doing that,” Hakuren swats Kouha’s legs when he tries again. “You’re small enough to have extra space on your side anyway.”

“No I don’t, it’s so suffocating back here. Not to mention I’m dying, did one of you turn off the air conditioning again?” Hakuyuu just opens the windows instead and Kouha groans.

“We’re almost there anyway.” Kouen makes a turn and goes right into the nearest parking lot. The four get out of the car and each grab a suitcase, walking out of the parking lot and into the streets. They walk down a couple of blocks before Hakuyuu stops them at an alley right next to a small patisserie. 

“Looks like this one’s got a sweet tooth.” Kouha notes. Nobody else comments on it, no one ever does right before a job like this. Any one of them could get hurt or die from this, after all. 

Humans were never meant to fight demons of this level head on. Yet humans keep trying all the same. The optimal result would be being able to send the demon influencing Hakuryuu back to hell with minimal injuries. The worst result… The worst result is something that Hakuyuu won’t allow at any cost.

They go deep enough into the alley so that any people passing by would have a hard time seeing what’s going on. Hakuren and Kouha prepare the circle while Kouen gets the plastic bag with the demon’s hair. 

“All ready, En-nii!” Kouha hops back and Kouen places the hair in the center of the summoning circle. Hakuren draws a binding circle around it.

“Are you sure this will work though? We don’t have a name or even any titles.” Hakuren places the chalk away and wipes his hands.

“It’s the best we got. And we’re going to summon it with only the intent of a consultation, which means it won’t appear physically, only as a spirit.” Hakuyuu looks over the circles just in case for any errors and fixes one of the signs on the binding circle. 

“But it might still be able to do some damage in that form, so stay on guard.” Kouen adds. 

“Yeah, I know.” Hakuren sighs. “We aren’t going to let something like that happen again. So, if everyone’s ready we can start.”

Everyone glances at Hakuren with a bit of doubt, a dash of anxiety, but they nod. If something like a little anxiety ever got in their way, none of them would have gotten into this work in the first place. 

Hakuyuu brings his hands together and starts with the chanting, with Hakuren following right behind him. Kouen and Kouha both watch and keep their hands close to his swords just in case. Clouds float over them and darken, making the air smell like thunderstorms. Sparks fly from the center of the circle where the stray hair rests, their only real item of identification. Even without knowing the name of the demon, this should be more than enough to bring it specifically here instead of accidentally pulling another demon close by. The stronger the identification, the harder it is for anyone else to hijack it. A demon that’s still resting in hell would have no chance of interrupting the summoning.

“I call upon you, high demon, in accordance with the statutes and ordinances.” The brothers finish. 

And everything goes black. 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> easy way to write a chapter quickly: get a latte way too big for your caffeine-weak body and write while you feel like your entire brain is vibrating in your head

Hakuryuu knew that Hakuyuu and the other would be back late, but that usually meant coming back past midnight, usually closer to 2 or 3am. He didn’t expect that they would come back a little before eleven, and he didn’t expect to hear someone stomping up the stairs.

The door bursts open.

“Ren-nii? Is something wro-” He doesn’t get to finish the question because Hakuren immediately grabs him by the collar.

“What were you doing interacting with a demon? Conspiring with a demon? Did you make any deals, I bet you did in order to get enough power to kill Ithnan, what were you thinking-”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Kouen and Kouha run into the room, both with varying degrees of blood soaking through their clothes. Kouen limps his way to the two and pushes Hakuren away from Hakuryuu, the gash on his leg . 

“This isn’t the time to let your temper get ahead of you.” Kouen says, but if he glared any harder at Hakuryuu he could be stabbed by it. “Hakuryuu. You have a lot of questions that need to be answered.”

“I have a lot of questions to ask too.” Hakuryuu refuses to take a step back, looking Hakuren and then Kouen right in the eyes. “Like first of all, what happened? Where’s Yuu-nii, I thought he went with you.”

Hakuren’s mouth twitches. Kouen just takes a deep breath that shudders a little at the end of the exhale.

“He’s gone.” Kouha speaks up instead.

“...What do you mean he’s gone?” Hakuryuu swallows.

“Your demon pal possessed him, almost killed us on a whim, and then went off to god knows where.” There’s scratches all over Kouha’s face. Meanwhile Hakuryuu suddenly can’t feel his own face. “And we can’t find him. Even if we could, we have no idea how to exorcise the demon out of him, since we just lost our best medium.”

Hakuryuu stares at Kouha, looking for any sign of the bastard joking, any quirky twist at the corner of his lips. Nothing. “That’s. That’s a bad joke, Kouha.”

“It’s not a joke.” Hakuren snaps. “Now what were you doing, working with a demon in the first place? Did you summon it on purpose, when did this start?”

“What makes you think that I’m working with a demon?” It’s probably obvious to them now, yet part of Hakuryuu says to keep playing dumb, at least until he has a better grasp of what is going on right now. “And even if I was, what makes you think that the demon that… possessed Yuu-nii is the same one?” Just saying that Hakuyuu is possessed feels unbelievable, completely fantastical. You can’t just break down an immovable wall all of a sudden.

“Don’t play dumb.” Kouen crosses his arms. “That person that was there with you, when you passed out after losing your arm. That’s the demon, wasn’t it?”

Hakuryuu wants to say something. Come up with some kind of excuse, some bullshit that might be able to get him to maneuver around this situation. But he’s run out of lies and the words he wants to say come out as a soundless breath instead. 

“I thought he was suspicious from the moment I saw the scene.” Kouen’s small eyes have a way of holding so much fury inside. “I didn’t have any solid evidence then. If I had eyes like you then I would have killed him on the spot.”

“...And what makes you think I was actually working with him.” All this shows so far is that Hakuryuu has in fact interacted with Judar at least once.

“Bringing the head of Ithnan like that is a really reckless move if you wanted to keep your alliance a secret.” says Hakuren.

“That’s just because you and Yuu-nii never thought I could do anything by myself!” Hakuryuu snaps. “And I was doing that to protect everyone! I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt, or for the issue to cause panic in the city, is that such a bad thing?”

“You should’ve talked to us.” Hakuren’s eyes feel foreign when they go cold like that. 

“I did.” Hakuryuu balls up his fists. “I did. I prepared the tracking methods and everything. We had a whole meeting trying to plan something, but none of you ended up doing anything about it.”

“Just because we decided to think about it for one more day doesn’t mean we weren’t doing anything.”  

“Ithnan was already planning to summon someone much stronger than him by that time!”

“And where did you get that information? Why didn’t you tell us as soon as you found out?” Shit. Hakuren got him. “...It’s because you got that intel from that demon, didn’t you? That’s something too specific for you to have found out on your own and you knew it would be suspicious, so you decided to take action in your own hands, dirtying yourself by going along with that demon.” Hakuryuu’s eye twitches.

“Did you make any kind of contract?” Kouen asks in that way he does when he tries to add distance so he doesn’t blow up. But in the end, he never had siblings that would act against his will. 

“No.” Hakuryuu could say that much definitely. “I was very specific in telling him that we were only going to work together to kill Ithnan. Nothing more could be guaranteed.”

“Nothing more could be guaranteed, huh?” Kouen narrows his eyes. “So you still left the possibility open of working with that demon afterwards, if the opportunity presented itself.”

“Stop twisting my words.”

“Twisting words is what all demons do, it’s what they specialize in.”

“How do you know it’s the same demon anyway? Did you track him down or summon him?” Hakuryuu needs to make sure this doesn’t turn into some one-sided interrogation.

“We did do a summoning ritual.” Hakuren huffs. “Only to summon the demon in spirit form. Kouen had a hair to target that one specifically so there’s no way it was anyone else.”

A hair. Of course. There’s no point in even trying to find Judar’s name if they have something like that. Old sorcerors used to steal civilians’ souls through stolen locks of hair when they couldn’t get a true name. It doesn’t help that Judar’s hair reaches all the way down to his legs either. 

“...I see.” What else can Hakuryuu say about that? That’s it, Judar was summoned and the act must of pissed him off so he went and possessed the most suitable vessel, which was Hakuyuu in this case. As resilient as a medium can become to demonic influences, they’ll always be the most attractive vessels to possess as their bodies are easier to use if they can be dominated. So Judar, seeing that Hakuyuu was the best medium of them all, leagues better than what Hakuryuu could be, took the opportunity. That’s just what it is. A simple train of thought for a demon. An easy course of action for someone who has no loyalties. 

They were never bound to anything beyond killing Ithnan in the first place. 

Hakuren tries to take a deep breath, fails, and slams the wall with his fist instead. 

“Yuu-nii… He’s, he’s really...” Hakuryuu’s stubbornness starts to falter and he stares down at the floor. Is this what he gets for working with a demon? It should have at least been something that harms himself, not anyone else, not his older brother who had to act as their father while facing these risks every day.

“...Let’s call this off for now.” Hakuren’s head is leaning on his fist. Hakuryuu wonders if he really would have stopped at this point if the others weren’t here. “We have to fix up our wounds first. Ryuu, don’t you dare leave the house or do anything weird.”

“I understand.” He has no desire to do any such thing anyway.

Hakuryuu has gotten a little better with crying since he was younger. That didn’t stop the tears from obscuring his vision right after everyone else left the room and Hakuren closes the door shut too hard. He sits down on the bed and the softness of the sheets feels like an insult to the harsh reality. This isn’t the type of crying where the ceiling feels like it’s about to collapse and everything feels hopeless and all he wants to do is whine about all his woes that feel like tremendous obstacles. 

His hands grip the sheets and it’s frustrating how fabric can’t bleed. He’d rip them apart if he had just the slightest less restraint to hold him back. But this anger’s useless. It’s so useless because he can’t channel it into anything that could help him get Hakuyuu back. His brother’s not dead yet, the soul should still be alright, unconscious, not yet corrupted. They say that when someone has been possessed for too long, exorcism has a greater risk of serious health complications or death. But Hakuyuu’s strong, resilient. He’ll come back, so long as Hakuryuu can find a way to bring him back. 

How, though? How in the world is he supposed to get a demon exorcised if even his brother couldn’t repel the possession himself? If Hakuren, Kouen, and Kouha were all there at the time, no doubt trying to prevent this from happening in the first place and afterwards tried to get the demon out of Hakuyuu? How is Hakuryuu supposed to anything about this, with how weak, how pathetic he is? There’s nothing, there’s nothing he can do. He’s weaker than ever. He made Judar dispel the strength magic used to augment his prosthetic. Just getting better at fighting means nothing. Researching more probably means nothing. Regardless, he has to find something, there’s always a way to dispel any kind of supernatural influence. Because the supernatural by law counters the natural, and the natural is always the one that has true control in the end, or at least that’s what the books always say.

His phone starts ringing. Hakuryuu wipes his tears and gets up to see the screen: it’s Judar. He shouldn’t answer. Who knows what Judar wants, or if he found some way to actually utilize the electromagnetic waves in technology for magic, since he specializes in electricity and all. 

He answers anyway. “What do you want.”

“Wow, that’s rude of you to say when I’ve actually been trying to pull my weight here.” It sounds like… Judar. Instead of Hakuyuu’s voice, or some combination of Hakuyuu and Judar or Hakuyuu and something deeper and more demonic the way that B-rated television shows would indicate that a character has been taken over by some monstrosity. 

“...What have you been doing? Where are you right now?” But maybe Judar’s purposely still using his voice instead of Hakuyuu’s. To make it seem like he hasn’t possessed anyone, as if Hakuryuu would be that dumb and wouldn’t know about something that directly happened to his family.

“Simple stuff really. Asking demons around for information.” There’s an odd wet noise in the background. “Maybe a little bit of interrogation here and there, but that’s just how the business goes around here.” 

“And? Did you find anything?” He wants to just ask what Judar has done to his brother, but if Judar was willing to take over his brother’s body that means that he has no restraint and would be fine with doing whatever he wants to Hakuryuu.

“A little bit. Like little fallen princess here backstabbing me like the bitch she is.” There’s a shrieking noise and the sound of crunching, too close to the receiver of the phone. “I thought she had something up her sleeve, every one of these fucks always does, but I didn’t think it’d be something this big.”

“...Continue.”

“Dunya and her sandy boytoy were caught up in a debt with Ithnan. Needed to help him with something. But I also owed them because they helped me get out of hell.” Kicking noises and the long dragged out wails that accompanies the sound of flesh ripping. “So she thought up of something crafty. Got me to go after Ithnan while he was trying to summon Arba. Lilith. Whatever you call her. It’s a great deal for them, really. Clears up their debt with Ithnan with him getting what he wants, but also kills him. And I was an easy tool to pull cause I was in debt to them.” 

There’s muffled protesting in the background and Judar hisses at what Hakuryuu assumes to be Dunya. “Bet you wish I still owed you right now, huh? Scream louder before I get bored and rip out your lungs!”

“...Have you been working on this for the entire time?” Hakuryuu nudges. Judar seems too into whatever morbid violence he’s committing right now to think of a good lie.

“Huh? Say that again?” More chewing noises. At least have some manners and keep the phone away while you’re eating.

“Have you been working on getting information from her this entire time?”

“Oh! Yeah, pretty much. I mean I had to ask a couple succubi on the street about some shit that led me here, but yeah I haven’t really been doing much else. It’s a real bitch to find someone when they don’t want to be seen.” There’s another crunching noise but it’s more like the crunching of bone against a hard force than the crunching of the mouth.

“I see.” It sounds Judar-like enough to feel honest, but Hakuryuu is no demon lie machine. He should keep his distance. “Is there anything else you need to tell me? Stop chewing on the phone, by the way.”

“Huh? Oh okay.” That doesn’t stop Judar from making an uncomfortable swallowing noise. Hakuryuu should’ve been more general and just said no eating. “Uh… not really. I’ll probably look around more, see if there’s any others around besides the common succubi or weird yokai that might be worth questioning or eating.”

“Alright. Let me know if you find out anything else important.” Knowing that the whole Ithnan battle was set up is good to know, but it really doesn’t give him any headway on how to solve the situation, just some extra context and another reason to feel stupid for what he’s done. “Goodbye then.”

“Okay, bye Hakuryuu.”

He doesn’t like how Judar says his name in the middle of all that violent background noise. But maybe it’s appropriate nonetheless, all Hakuryuu’s been doing lately is bringing his whole family closer and closer to hell, it seems. He turns off his phone just so that he won’t get any other calls from Judar today. It doesn’t matter if the demon has the most important information to give or somehow, miraculously, gives him proof that it was another demon that actually possessed Hakuyuu and that he somehow fixed the situation. 

He stares at the door as if someone could come in any second with a second bout of anger, rushing even harder than the first time, upon realizing some other implication of the possession or finding out some other information that could get Hakuryuu in deeper trouble. Their anger would be justified if only they let him actually participate more, if only they let him have opportunities to advance in exorcist work and get more experienced. Then he wouldn’t have started any of this shit, then they would have worked together to solve all these problems before they started snowballing into what could be the worst possible scenario. 

There is a knock, but it’s soft, timid unlike the rage still simmering in Hakuren or the barely veiled anger in Kouen. 

“What is it?” The door opens. It’s Kougyoku. 

“Hey…” She peeks in through the half-open door, leaning against it the way people do when they just want to say one thing and then leave the other person alone. “...I heard what happened from downstairs.”

“Yeah.” Hakuryuu gives her a stone cold stare. She’s probably talking about the whole confrontation with Hakuren earlier, though she could have been waiting by the door during that entire phone conversation too. He kept his voice low for that, but the suspicion is still there. 

“Is… Is Judar the demon? The one that took Hakuyuu?” She looks more afraid to admit it than Hakuryuu himself.

“Based off of what Hakuren and the others have said, I don’t know how it could be anyone else.” 

“...So that means he was the one you were working with too then, against Ithnan…” Kougyoku’s hands grip the doorknob. “...And that you were also dating a demon, too.”

Hakuryuu sighs. “I don’t know what Judar has been telling you but we never had anything.”

“Huh?” She blinks. “What? No way, not from the way he talked about it, it sounded so genuine and…” her voice drags off. “Anyway, that’s not the important part. I don’t know, I just… I don’t believe that Judar would do that, I can’t believe it.”

“It doesn’t matter what you believe.” Hakuryuu’s not sure if he’s saying that more to Kougyoku or himself. Then again he’s not sure what he even wants to believe in the first place. “They wouldn’t be stupid about something like this, the summoning ritual was specifically for Judar. There’s no way any other demon could have overridden it.” There’s too many complications and various conditions they’d have to satisfy to have a chance at overriding, and they’d also need to want that too. 

“You’re right.” Kougyoku slumps. “...I guess I just want to say that… How do I word this?” She bites her lip. “I don’t think you necessarily did the bad thing by working with Judar to kill Ithnan.”

“Of course you- what?” He must have misheard.

“I mean. It was supposed to be just to get back at a demon that cursed you and made you lose your arm, right? Plus, Ithnan’s existence is a risk for everyone anyway, he’s someone that we needed to take care of one way or another and basically yeah it makes sense to try to do something about it because you would want to and I’m just rambling now but-”

“No I got what you’re saying.” Hakuryuu’s gaze softens just a little. “...Thanks.” 

“N-no problem.”

“You probably shouldn’t let anyone else know you think this, though. Our situation is already bad enough.”

“Yeah, I know.” She takes a breath and tries to look determined, fists balled up and held up close to her chest. “We’ll do our best to get Hakuyuu back no matter what.” 

“We will.” No matter who the enemy might be. 


	17. Chapter 17

When you’re five, six, seven years old they call it the monster under the bed or in the closet, a cute way to personify the fear of the dark or of weird noises that come to life in the night. It’s fine to have fear at that age. But hear something in the middle of the night that makes your jaw clench at eighteen and there’s nothing cute about it anymore.

To be fair, Hakuryuu had just woken up in a cold sweat. His blood feels overheated, like his body melting from the inside out. He brings his hand to his face, nails close to picking at the border of his scars. They only end up grazing the edge, but that’s all he needs. The skin feels old, used to its condition, not raw and burning. It’s a good reminder that the nightmare is just an old memory resurfacing.

He remembers the fire like it was yesterday, not twelve years ago. Being pulled back into consciousness with a splash of cold water, yet everything still felt like it was on fire. The way Hakuyuu picked him up and ran, clutching him close as their old house fell apart. How Hakuyuu fell to his knees right as he ran through the door into the open, holding Hakuryuu even tighter than before and apologizing like it was a mantra to make all the pain go away, asking for forgiveness even though Hakuryuu didn’t even know what went wrong yet. It was the first time he’d seen his older brother cry, though even then Hakuryuu’s not sure if that actually happened or if he inserted that looking back, the way that vivid memories change over time with every instance of reliving it. 

Hakuryuu wasn’t allowed to perform a single ritual for over ten years because of the fire. It wasn’t just Hakuyuu, but everyone was too scared to let go of his hand, as if something tragic would happen again as soon as Hakuryuu was out of their reach. They probably think they’re right. It’s all the more reason for him to prove them wrong.

He gets up to wash his face and has to close his eyes for a second because the bathroom light is too strong for a quick break at 4 in the morning. He gets to the sink and turns the water on, splashing some on his face while keeping his eyes closed the whole time. Reaching out for the towel, Hakuryuu opens his eyes as he dries his face.

The reflection isn’t his own. It’s Hakuyuu, or rather Judar possessing Hakuyuu, except neither of them has ever smiled in a way that makes their mouth look drawn on and ready to curl into any curvature. The inside of the mouth is completely black, matching the sclera of his eyes.

Hakuryuu takes several steps back, his back hitting the light switch and the bathroom goes dark again. All he can see in the dark is the reflection of his own silhouette taking deep breaths, back pressed against the wall. There’s no sign of cursed energy anywhere, so that has to all be from his own head, a remnant of anxiety leftover from remembering the fire fusing the issues of then and now. It almost makes it look like the same demon as before is back. Ridiculous. Their parents didn’t die for the scourge to come back so soon. 

It’s obvious Hakuryuu’s not going to get any more sleep. He turns on all of the lights and sits down at his desk even though there’s nothing to work on because all of the books have turned out to be useless. He almost thinks about calling Judar again, since demons don’t sleep, but of course, that’s not an option. Instead he goes to the closet and grabs a staff to practice. It’s not going to change anything, he’ll still be as useless against a high-tier demon as before, but it keeps his mind focused on something else until the birds start to talk and the sun starts to rise. 

He puts the staff back in the exact location that it’s always in, and goes straight for his phone. The training at least got his mind to start working again, and it’s amazing how he could forget something so obvious when he gets stuck on fixating on one issue.

It takes a while for the other person to pick up. “Hello?”

“Hey.” Hakuryuu looks out the window as he tries to put the words together. “...I’m sorry it’s been a while since we’ve talked, with the medical leave and all. But I do have a favor to ask of you, if it isn’t too much…”

 

* * *

Kougyoku stands besides the gates of the high school, glancing at her phone every two seconds while waiting for the last bell to ring and for all the students to start leaving.

_ Kougyoku: are u sure about this?? _

_ Hakuryuu: I can’t leave so you have to do this for me. _

_ Kougyoku: (T⌓T) hakuryuuuuuuuuu _

_ (Read at 3:49pm) _

Right. Hakuren hasn’t gotten any better in the slightest, if anything, he only seems to have gotten worse since there’s no time to really sit down and process that a demon has really taken Hakuyuu. There’s only room for planning, for desperately finding some way to get him back. 

Kougyoku looks back at the picture that Hakuryuu sent her. The person he wants her to talk to would be immediately recognizable, with the pink hair and what looks like perfect eyeliner. Damn, if this were a different time, she’d ask for eye makeup advice. She goes on a different app to look like she has something to do instead of staring at a picture of a student right outside of the campus like a creep. When she meets this Morgiana person, she’ll have to put on her best professional face.

The students start walking out in groups and Kougyoku glances at them, looking for the characteristic pink hair. The first ones that are out are slackers, the type that just want to get out and hang around in the streets or just go home and sleep. She has to wait for almost ten minutes before she sees the girl walking out of the gate. With some guy. That might make this a little more awkward, but Kougyoku can manage. 

“...Morgiana?” The two stop and turn to look at her. She makes sure to stand up straight with a professional composure. “I’m Kougyoku, Hakuryuu’s cousin. I believe he told you that we can talk for a moment after school?”

“Oh, you’re Hakuryuu’s cousin?” The blond guy speaks up first. Kougyoku just nods, keeping her professional resting bitch face on. This isn’t the time to socialize. “Has he been doing better?”

“He’s recovering.”

“Oh that’s great, tell him we’re fine with visiting, I know he’s been avoiding us cause he thinks we feel obligated but we really don’t.” 

Morgiana nods in agreement. “Yeah. I do have some business with Kougyoku though, so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Alright, see you later Mor! And it was good meeting you, Kougyoku!” The guy waves them off and goes on his way. 

Morgiana waves back and waits until her friend is out of hearing reach. “You’re in the same business as Hakuryuu, right?”

“Yes, and we should probably talk about this somewhere else.” Morgiana nods and they walk over to a nearby park that isn’t too populated. A sudden chill  in the weather has a way of clearing out these areas, but there’s an outside coffee stand so the hot drinks should keep them warm enough.

“So, Hakuryuu told me you’re a fanalis.” 

“That’s correct.” That’s actually super exciting and Kougyoku would like to ask all about it but that’s not what she’s here for. Maybe if they get the chance to have a more casual conversation later.

“We don’t like to take our issues to people outside of the family, but this is a serious case we’re dealing with right now, and you must have had many interactions with demons specifically.” Kougyoku states, keeping her face serious. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that there have been much stronger demons coming out recently.”

“Yeah, do you need me to help you track one? I can smell you have something on you that has some demonic magic left in it.” Morgiana’s nose twitches. It’s cute. 

“Oh yeah, you can smell it from here?” Kougyoku reaches in her tote bag and pulls out Hakuryuu’s prosthetic. 

Morgiana takes it, pulls it close to her face so she can take a long sniff. “...I’ve definitely smelled this around before. It’s hard to forget something so rotten.”

“So will you be able to find him? I don’t want to hunt him down right now, but I do want to know where he is, get some surveillance.” It feels… wrong to talk about Judar like this. Even though he’s a demon, even though he’s the one that took Hakuyuu away from them and hurt her entire family. But that’s just how betrayal feels, sharp but also sticky and disgusting. 

“I can do that much.” Morgiana starts sniffing the air and looks to the side opposite of where they came from. “But I hope you’re ready if he spots and attacks us. I’m not at my full strength up here.” 

“I know how to defend myself in a fight.” Kougyoku wraps the prosthetic in a cloth and puts it back in the bag after Morgiana hands it back. That way it can’t get any scratches from the knives inside. “I’m ready when you are.” 

Morgiana starts to walk without a word and Kougyoku follows close behind. It’s hard to imagine that a fanalis can pinpoint a demon so easily with just smell, or maybe “smell” is just the closest word humans have to describe the tracking sense that they all have. Kougyoku finds herself almost running to keep up with Morgiana even though the smaller girl looks like she’s just walking at a slightly faster pace than normal, light footed and graceful at every step.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just deal with the issue right now?” Morgiana asks after ten minutes of constant speed walking, stopping only at the traffic light. 

“We just want some more information right now.” 

“Ah. Hakuryuu doesn’t seem like the type to just scout for information.”

He isn’t. It’s really her own fear keeping her back. “This situation is a little unique.” She gives the fanalis the most serious face she can pull, because it’s technically not a lie. “We don’t want to do anything too high-risk at the moment. I just want to know where he’s been and what he’s been up to before doing anything else.”

Morgiana stares at her until the traffic lights let them walk again. “If that’s what you say. I’m sure you already know that other people have been looking into this demon in particular, too.”

“Of course.” Lying is a bit easier when she’s walking a little behind. But now that Morgiana mentions it, it’s obvious that the Sindria company would be keeping their eyes on this, especially with Ithnan’s sudden death and the blow this deals to their family. No sane exorcist wouldn’t be paying attention to a situation like this and the demon that has been stirring all of these events. “Do you know if they’ve done anything?”

“Not that I know. I’m not officially aligned with them.” Not officially, huh. Hakuryuu’s going to want to know this. Kougyoku nods even though Morgiana can’t see it, too busy thinking if maybe this was a mistake. Backing off in the middle would just be worse, though. Probably. Would it?

“We’re almost there.” No, it definitely would be a mistake to stop by this point. Kougyoku hurries up so she can catch up with Morgiana and they turn a couple more corners before entering a shopping center, going up to the third floor, and stopping right in front of a candy store.

“...Is this it?” They stopped a little away from the door, sort of hiding behind some of the candy displayed on the other side of the full length windows that serve as walls. 

“I can smell that he’s right inside. I should probably leave if you want to spy on him, he’ll be able to tell what I am immediately.”

Kougyoku grabs Morgiana’s sleeve before she can scurry off. “Wait what do you mean you’re just going to leave, I haven’t even seen him yet!” She protests in a loud whisper. “You could have just led me to a random place.”

“Why would I ever do that.”

“Uh, well…” Whatever professional facade Kougyoku had put on at the start is melting, if it hadn’t already fallen apart completely. “You… you said you’re sort of aligned with other exorcists.” 

“I’ve interacted with them. It doesn’t mean I’m aligned with anyone.” 

Kougyoku wishes this girl wasn’t able to keep a stone cold expression like that. “Yeah but you’ve talked with them first! That means they could have been trying to tell you not to help us, or I don’t know… bribe you or-”

“What the fuck is  _ that _ doing here?” 

Kougyoku jolts and turns to see Judar. Just regular Judar, with his unbelievably long black hair braided all the way down to the legs, sharp features, and large red eyes. None of which say Hakuyuu. He’s got a whole bag full of candies and is munching on some peach rings. Morgiana glares right at him. 

“Hey, stay back you feral mutt.” It’s the most uncomfortable Judar has ever sounded, with the smallest attempt at trying to still feel casual.

“Judar? You’re just… you?” Kougyoku gapes.

He blinks. “Yeah I’m me, what are you going on about? Did you think I tried to reinvent my identity after Ithnan- oh wait, you aren’t supposed to know that right, shit.” 

“Wait if you’re here then… You didn’t- then who-” Kougyoku finds herself sputtering out nonsense, but honestly she’s too overwhelmed to care if Judar or Morgiana thinks that there’s something wrong with her. “Where’s, where’s Hakuyuu then? If you didn’t- but they hunted for you? Who else could just jump in like that?”

“Hakuryuu?” Judar narrows his eyes. “I don’t know where he is. You should know better than me, right? You live with him.”

“No, not Hakuryuu.  _ Hakuyuu. _ ”

“Who the fuck is that, his evil twin?” Okay there’s no way that Judar had anything to do with this. Kougyoku finally lets herself breathe, and letting out all of that worry from her lungs has the side effect of making the corners of her eyes tear up.

“I’m so glad it’s not you, I knew it had to have been something else!” She grabs a handkerchief from her bag and wipes off the tears before it ruins her makeup. “Oh, Hakuryuu’s going to be so glad to hear that you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m gonna text him right now.”

“Okay but what’s going on? Why’d you send a mutt after me?” Judar glares at Morgiana but Morgiana glares harder. 

“You should be glad that she didn’t send me here to kill you.”

“You should be glad I’m not in an animal control mood.”

_ Kougyoku: HAKURYUU HAKURYUU _

_ Kougyoku: our ju is innocent (Ｔ▽Ｔ) _

_ Kougyoku: he didnt do anything to hakuyuu everything is good someone else did it aaaaaagfcvjbj _

“Sorry, what were we on-” Kougyoku looks back up and the two look like they’re one hair from starting a fight in the middle of the mall.

“Where’d you find a fanalis and why’d you send one after me Kougyoku? I thought we had something.”

“I-I just wanted to find you in person, that’s all.” And maybe she thought that there was the slight possibility that Judar actually possessed Hakuyuu, but that’s no longer important now that it’s been disproved. “Everyone thought that you possessed one of my cousins so I needed to see you in person because I couldn’t believe it. But since you didn’t, everything is okay!” She turns to Morgiana and shakes her hand with both of hers. “Thank you so much Morgiana, this really lifted a weight off my shoulders.”

“...No problem.” There’s no doubt that the fanalis is judging her for being so friendly with a demon, but she just turns around and goes her way instead of starting any conflict. 

“You got a person in your family named Hakuyuu?” Judar scratches the back of his head. “How do you not get him confused with Hakuryuu? Does everyone else in your family have similar sounding names?”

“Sort of.” But it’s not really the time to explain East Asian naming customs. “Everyone was sure it was you because they used one of your hairs for a summoning circle, but I guess something else was somehow able to interfere with that?”

“Oh. Well, summoning me specifically almost never works. You guys are really dumb for exorcists.” Judar munches on another peach ring.

“Huh?” Kougyoku tilts her head. Judar pats her on the back.

“Buy me some boba tea to make up for having to see a fucking fanalis out here. Then I’ll tell you.”

_ Hakuryuu: wait what do you mean he’s innocent _ _   
_ _ Hakuryuu: Kougyoku? _


	18. Chapter 18

“...I don’t think I get it.” Kougyoku stares blankly at Judar, sitting next to him on one of the benches they have for tired shoppers in the middle of the mall.

Judar’s slurping up the last of the tapioca bubbles that are always left over after the entire drink. “Man, why isn’t Hakuryuu here? He would’ve understood it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She pouts.

“Means he’s smarter. Duh. Anyway where is he? There has to be something holding him back that led to you coming over here, right?”

“...Yeah.” It just makes it seem more and more like Kougyoku’s only there as a backup. Which is true, if she really thinks about it. So she doesn’t. “Hakuryuu’s not allowed out of the house at all right now. Hakuren would probably kill him if he tries. But, once he knows that you weren’t the one that possessed Hakuyuu, then things should get better!” Maybe.

“Haku...ren? How many of them are there?” 

“It goes from Hakuyuu, Hakuren, Hakuei, and Hakuryuu.” 

“Eugh. Sounds like a headache.” Judar leans back on his seat. “Anyway. Tell Hakuryuu there’s like a ninety five percent chance that- hey, what are you doing?”

Kougyoku swings her body to the opposite side, phone in hand. “I need to show proof that it’s not really you. Oops, I got you with your mouth all open like that, but it should be okay.” She sends the photo to Hakuryuu.

_ Kougyoku: See? Not him _

_ Hakuryuu: ...Are you sure it’s not an illusion _

_ Kougyoku: eugh it’s him alright, what other proof do you need >_< _

_ Hakuryuu: What’s so wrong about making sure? _

She groans. “...He still doesn’t believe you.”

“Of course he doesn’t.” Judar tosses his drink in the trash can. “Guess I have to go there by myself.”

“Wait no you shouldn’t do that, at least not now.”

“Hm, why?” Judar tilts his head.

“It’s… just really not a good time right now.” That would be an understatement. Kougyoku can barely pass by anyone without feeling like things could erupt into a fight. If Hakuryuu’s in the vicinity, it’s either completely silent or full of explosive yelling. “And I’m sure that they upped the security too.”

“So you’re telling me Hakuryuu’s stuck in there and I can’t go in, and he’s just gonna keep believing that I took his older brother for whatever reason.”

“Basically…” It sounds a lot dumber when put in those words, but it seems Judar just has a way of doing that. “But I’m sure I can talk to him and he’ll believe me.”

Judar’s expression doesn’t hold the smallest strand of belief. This is awkward. Kougyoku puts her phone in her bag and sighs. “...If only I could actually see magic.” 

“You can’t, but that mutt can.” It takes a second for her to remember that Judar means Morgiana. “Does he know her?”

“Yeah, they’re friends from school! I’ll let her know right now.”

Judar scrunches up his nose. “He’s friends with a thing like that? Gross.” 

“Hey, exorcists and fanalis work very well together.” Kougyoku crosses her arms.

“Yeah, that’s why it’s so gross.” Judar rolls his eyes. “And boring too. Where’s the fun in work colleagues?” His reaction does make sense though, as a demon and also as someone who seems to have a track history of problematic relationships and was able to shrug off a choking murder attempt. Judar has kept trying to tell her that it really isn’t a big deal at all for demon standards, but Hakuryuu is no demon and any relationship should be healthier than that if it wants to last.

“Okay but, more importantly,” as much as Kougyoku likes Judar as a person, she can’t believe she’s asking something like this of a demon. Maybe Hakuryuu felt something similar. “Could you help us? With getting Hakuyuu back and putting that demon back in hell, that is.”

“Hm… no.”

“Huh? B-but, it’s Hakuryuu’s older brother and-”

“No, I don’t do the whole kicking something back to hell shit.” Judar gets up from the bench. “I’ll eat that bitch alive.”

Kougyoku stares up at him, looking for any hint of a joke and coming up empty. There’s only anger and raw determination there, so strong she wonders if her cousins would be able to see it through energy. And frankly, she has no idea what to feel about it. 

 

* * *

“So you’re absolutely sure about this.” Hakuryuu’s putting the prosthetic back on and gives Kougyoku a look that he absolutely won’t forgive her if she’s wrong. 

“I am, one hundred percent! Look, even Morgiana vouched for me, she called you as I was coming back, right?”

“Yeah, but she’s also never seen Judar before.”

“She knows what you look like and therefore what Hakuyuu basically looks like.” Honestly if the two had a smaller age difference they’d look more like twins than siblings. 

“...Okay, fine.” He’s not sure why he’s having such a hard time believing this. He wants to believe, he’s glad that it’s not actually Judar, but maybe it’s the unsettling implications of what really happened to his older brother that’s keeping him from processing everything. “But this only makes our problem worse.”

“Huh, how so?”

“You… do you not know who Arba is?” Judar’s getting even sloppier with his explanations.

“I’ve never heard of that name but Judar did say it was a different demon that could hijack the summoning ritual because they have some extended history.”

Extended history. Hakuryuu’s not sure if he wants to know. “Did he not tell you. One of Arba’s common names is Lilith.”

Kougyoku stares. “What.”

“So he didn’t tell you.” Hakuryuu presses his hand on his forehead. “Do you see why this is a bigger issue now?”

Kougyoku stares down at the ground instead of at Hakuryuu now. “At least we have Judar on our side now. And we can probably get some help from Morgiana too, since it’s her duty after all-”

“And you think we’ll have enough with just a ragtag team like that?”

“Ah, well. I mean, we have our family too…”

“Like any of them would be willing to work with a demon.” Hakuryuu shoots her down immediately. “Hakuren and Kouen would rather die than work with Judar, and you know that Koumei, Kouha, and Ei-nee would just follow behind their steps.” He’s sure Kougyoku would have been in that same boat too if she hadn’t gotten to know Judar on her own and got deluded with the idea that he and Judar are a thing.  

“Well I’m trying to think of something that we can do, unless you have better ideas!” Kougyoku huffs. “...Even though I know it probably won’t help much.”

“No. You have a point. I was being too negative.” Hakuryuu feels his prosthetic as if there’s something wrong with it. “We’ll figure out some way. We have to.” But it’s one thing to say it and another to start actually strategizing anything that could prove effective. At least in the past he could delude himself into thinking that he could get strong enough with enough practice and enough studying. But a lifetime of work doesn’t compare to power built over the span of thousands of years through spite and hatred. 

They try to brainstorm together anyway, if only because there’s nothing better that either of them can do and Kougyoku’s fashion assignments only feel less and less important. There are a couple of exorcism rites that are supposed to work no matter how strong the demon, but that requires pacifying the demon long enough to keep it in the circle and actually perform the ritual in full, and that’s the part that really gives them nothing to go off on. Judar and Morgiana would have a better chance than them, but nothing guarantees that they’d be willing to work together, especially considering that they’re supposed to be natural enemies.

“I mean, Morgiana has her duty to bring demons back to hell as a fanalis, and Judar has a personal grudge so they might be able to put aside their differences long enough to deal with this, right?” Kougyoku crosses her legs on the seat she’s taken halfway through their brainstorming session. 

“Morgiana might try to tolerate it but Judar’s not going to work with anyone unless he wants to.” And when he wants to, he refuses to shut up about it. “I doubt he’ll be inclined even if it turns out to be enough to handle Arba.”

Kougyoku lets out a long winded sigh. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Why did you have to choose someone so stubborn?”

Hakuryuu’s brows furrow. “I didn’t choose anything.”

“You chose to mess with him that one day just because you wanted to show off.”

God. He’s practically forgotten about that. How different things were at the very beginning. “How do you even know that anyway?”

“Judar told me so himself.” So the demon does add some truths to his lies. 

“Well it doesn’t matter anyway. Judar’s not going to want to cooperate.” Hakuryuu pauses. “Which just means we’ll have to force him.”

“Nevermind, you’re just as stubborn as him, no wonder.”

Hakuryuu gives Kougyoku a look. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” No, Hakuryuu can figure out what it means with a little thought. Kougyoku’s playing wingwoman or matchmaker in the back of her head. She’s probably thinking something along the lines of their stubbornness makes them all the more compatible when in reality it just makes any interactions they have all the more frustrating.

“You should try to get more information from Morgiana tomorrow.” He steers the topic away to keep her from coming up with anything else weird. “She might know something or someone that may be useful for us.”

“Okay. I hope she doesn’t mentally blacklist us because of Judar…”

“I think she’ll hear you out.” Or rather Hakuryuu hopes so, since he doesn’t have much for an information network besides whatever resources he can get inside here and Judar himself. 

Kougyoku gets a buzz from her phone. “Oh, looks like Kouen and Koumei are coming back home soon. I should get back to my room.” Hakuryuu nods and goes back to busying himself with books that have no answers after his cousin leaves, just in case there might be something he may have overlooked despite checking over any relevant sections three times but mostly because he needs something to occupy himself with while the door looms behind him, ready to be interrupted by anyone at any time. He could lock it, but Hakuryuu doesn’t have anything to hide. 

He’s got nothing to hide except his phone when it starts to vibrate with Judar’s name pasted on the front. 

Hakuryuu picks up the call. “What is it.”

“Hey, you still think I’m inside your brother?”

“No, certainly not in that sense.” Hakuryuu’s mouth twitches downwards. “Is that all you wanted to call for?”

“It was like... the main thing I wanted to check.” The way Judar says it makes it sound like it was the only thing he wanted to talk about and, being surprised that it went by so quickly, he’s now trying to think of something else to say. Or something like that. 

“Then what is it, did you find anything important? Do you know where my brother is?” Hakuryuu starts trying to spin a pen in his hand but it stumbles and falters because he still hasn’t gotten full dexterity on his prosthetic yet.

“I have a vague idea where she might be. Do I know how to stop her? If I did, I would’ve killed that bitch long ago.”

“That seems to be a common theme with you and other demons.”

“Yeah, if they aren’t someone you eventually want to kill, are they really a demon?” Guess that’s one way to think about it. 

“Well at least tell me about where you think she may be and what she’s doing.”

“Uh, well.” Judar pauses just long enough for Hakuryuu to suspect that he was lying off his ass but then he starts again. “She’s probably gonna be gathering all her lackeys in that uh… one area, I don’t know what the name is, but I know where it is. It used to be the headquarters for a satanic cult a couple centuries ago and now it’s either like. A bookstore or a bar.”

Those are two very different things. “You should verify the location and get back to me on that.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.” He takes that so easily for such a confrontational demon, Hakuryuu wonders how much more he can do.

“And don’t just go eating every demon you encounter, you’re going to make yourself obvious and only easier to track.” 

“How’d you know that- Eugh, well what do you recommend I do then?”

“Keep yourself on the down low while you’re getting more information. Other exorcists are already starting to track you.” 

Judar groans and there’s a kicking noise. That kicking leads to another groan, more pained than frustrated and obviously from a different person. “Okay, but I’m gonna finish up this one cause it’s an easy snack and you can’t tell me otherwise.”

Hakuryuu sighs. “Fine.” It’d be worse to leave whatever demon he’s been torturing out in the open. “But no more of that until I say so otherwise, understood?”

“Understood.” Judar whines like a kid reluctantly taking orders from his parents. “You need to stop being in house arrest. It’d make things easier for me if you weren’t stuck inside all the time.”

“It’s not like I want to be here.” Though it would be another thing to convince Hakuren and Kouen that he could be trusted outside, even if he gave definitive proof that the one possessing Hakuyuu isn’t Judar. Having Lilith out on the loose would only be more reason to keep their “reckless child” inside even though he’s sure that a demon of that calibre could easily break through whatever defenses they’ve been stockpiling around the house. 

“Oh, there’s something else that might help us.”

“Hm? What is it?”

“...I’ll tell you once you’re out.” Judar shouldn’t be assuming he’ll be out any time soon. “Can’t do it like this anyway.” 

Then what’s the point of bringing it up in the first place? “Fine. I’ll try to get out of this as soon as possible. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Mkay bye.”

Hakuryuu puts his phone down and gazes out the window, half-expecting the demon to just pop in at any moment. A crow’s perched on a tree nearby, facing him directly and not moving its head around the way that birds jerk around. It caws when it notices Hakuryuu’s looking back. He closes the blinds.

They say that crows can remember human faces, who has righted and wronged them. No wonder they are often the animal of choice for many witches and demons. It’d be one thing if the crow was somehow one of Judar’s, though Hakuryuu doubts that Judar has invested much energy into anything non-offensive. There’s a knocking on the window. Is it the crow? The noise was too blunt to sound like it came from a sharp peck, and didn’t have a loud enough impact to seem like the full force of a corvid flying right into the glass. Hakuryuu takes a chance and opens the blinds just enough to see what’s on the other side.

A hollowed out face of Hakuyuu, eyes melting black and mouth twisted up like it’s melting in the opposite direction of gravity. He’s mouthing something, muffled by the thin layer of glass separating them.

_ “I missed you Hakury-” _

Hakuryuu closes the blinds. His hand stays frozen on the string. Even though he couldn’t hear it, he could. In his head, that is. But the voice wasn’t Hakuyuu’s, it was something warmer, in the way that lollipops get too warm and start to stick to anything it touches, leaving a shiny, disgusting smear on the surface. Yet for all that saccharine warmth, it made all the blood rush out of Hakuryuu’s face, leaving it something cold and empty. 

Where had he heard that voice before? It feels too close to be the first time.

Hakuryuu creaks the blinds open by the slightest amount again. There’s only trees, without a single sign of wildlife in sight. He closes the blinds again anyway and goes downstairs to make a cup of tea instead. 

“You’re out of your room, huh.” Hakuren’s at the dining table, half-eaten granola bar on one side and a pen on top of multiple pieces of scratch paper on the other. Ah, exactly the kind of company Hakuryuu needs after feeling completely unsettled.

“I have to eat and drink to live.” He goes straight for the kettle and rummages through the teas as if he’s having a hard time selecting. 

“Are you trying to do something with Kougyoku?”

“...What do you mean by that.” It’s no surprise he’s suspecting something. Hakuryuu could take an extra second longer to breathe and Hakuren’s eyes would hawk over him.

“You were talking with her earlier.”

“I couldn’t just stand by while Yuu-nii’s in that state.” He might as well be honest at this point, Kouen’s the one that likes to twist his words, not Hakuren. “There’s a fanalis who is a classmate and friend of mine, so I had Kougyoku meet her and try to investigate the situation.”

“You did wh-”

“And.” Hakuryuu speaks up louder, he has to make sure to finish his explanation before Hakuren gets ahead of himself. “And apparently they tracked down the demon I had collaborated with against Ithnan and found that he hasn’t possessed Hakuyuu. There was no trace of him. Even if he was pulling an illusion, the fanalis would have been able to see through it.”

Hakuren looks at his younger brother, eyes slightly wider than normal, as if part of him is actually processing what he’s saying. But then they narrow, crushing any opportunity of understanding in the process. “You’re telling me you sent out Kougyoku on her own to look for a demon as powerful as that?”

“With the fanalis. They wouldn’t have gotten hurt.” 

“How do you know? What, don’t tell me you actually  _ trust _ that thing after working together for something that probably benefits him more than you?” Hakuren’s hand grips the pen until his knuckles go white.

Hakuryuu bites his lip. He could try to phrase differently, like he knows enough about Judar to predict some of his reactions to hypothetical situations, but that’s just the way that someone ten feet deep in denial would call trust, and that would look more pathetic than stating it upfront.

But Hakuren doesn’t need to hear Hakuryuu say it out loud. He throws the pen at the ground. “Ryuu. I’ve tried to be reasonable with you so many times before, because I got it. I got that you didn’t like being under our shadow because I felt like that with Yuu-nii a bunch of times too. You didn’t want to just be another responsibility, another burden to the family. But what I don’t get is how that twisted into…  _ this _ .” He spits out the last word like he doesn’t want to admit the existence of their current situation. 

“Ren-nii…” Hakuryuu doesn’t let his gaze falter even if his tongue hesitates and lingers on the words to say. “...This is purely a product of my own actions.”

“Just because it’s your decision doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect those around you… You should have talked to us instead.” We feel betrayed is what Hakuren really wants to say, and it comes through clearly in the way he looks at Hakuryuu, teeth grinding together. “Make sure to talk with us before you do anything next time.”

“I will.” He won’t. 

Hakuren’s frustration melts into something tired. “...I don’t want to lose you or Ei too.”

Funny how quickly Hakuren takes up the same role as his older brother once he’s gone. Makes Hakuryuu wonder what Hakuyuu would be like had he not been bearing the responsibility of a family and a business. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t let myself die or get possessed.” Even if that means going behind his brother’s back and working further with Judar, even if cooperating with a demon basically means getting dragged down to hell by hand. It’ll be worth it if he can get Hakuyuu back and keep everyone else safe. 


	19. Chapter 19

A whole week passes and Hakuryuu still hasn’t gotten permission to go anywhere, or to really know anything about what Hakuren, Kouen, and Koumei are strategizing. Maybe it’s because they don’t trust him, maybe it’s because they don’t want to admit to him that they have no idea how to handle the problem either. Regardless of the reason, Hakuryuu decides to sneak out tonight. 

Which is why Kougyoku’s standing right in front of Hakuren, pretending she’s got everything under control when she feels like she could actually get caught at any second.

“...I’m not saying no, but why me?” Hakuren blinks.

“Well I mean, I feel like I can only go so far training alone, especially since we have such a big issue to deal with.” Kougyoku tugs at one of her sleeves, completely covering the other hand. “I know Hakuei is almost completely recovered but I don’t want to strain her. Kouha just ends up bullying me the whole time and Koumei is… Koumei.”

“What about Kouen?”

Oh no she forgot about that. “Oh.. um, well…” Frankly she’s just too scared to ask anything of him, and it doesn’t help that his resting face looks like a tired, cranky commander ready to let his troops loose at any moment.

“...No I got you.” Looks like Hakuren read her mind.

She looks up at him and sighs with relief. “I’m really sorry, I know that you must be really busy too, but I want to be prepared for the worst case scenario. I’m still really weak but… I want to be an asset instead of a burden for you.” 

Hakuren looks like he’s about to say something but his eyes get caught in Kougyoku’s hard gaze. He presses his lips together and his expression starts to soften. “...Alright. I understand how you feel. There wouldn’t be much point in just having you slack around when you have a lot of potential.” There’s a small smile by the end of the sentence. 

Kougyoku beams, for real, because she… has potential? Just the word makes her heart flutter and want to train the whole night and more. “Yes, of course! I won’t let you down!”

The smile widens into something that looks a little more like Hakuren. “Really? I won’t go light on you, just so you know.” He pats the sheath of his sword. “You better be ready to have you ass handed to you.”

“Hey, don’t think you can just take me down so easily, I’m stronger than I look!” Kougyoku huffs. “Hold on a second though, let me get my sword.”

“Should’ve come to me with it if you were serious!” Hakuren calls out at Kougyoku as she runs upstairs and quickly knocks at Hakuryuu’s door. Hakuryuu’s eyes peek through the tiny slit he opens.

“So?”

“It worked, so hurry up!’ Kougyoku whispers. “I have no idea how long it’ll take, but I’ll try to keep at is as long as I can.”

“Got it.” Hakuryuu shuts the door.

“...He could’ve at least said thanks.” She grumbles as she rushes to get her sword and run back down the stairs.

Hakuryuu didn’t hear what Kougyoku said, but he remembers he should have said thanks a second too late. But there’s no time to waste. He stuffs anything and everything he might need - exorcist tools, weapons, and his phone - into his bag and opens the window. He uses the old tied blankets trick to bring himself down the two floors and to the ground safely and starts running. It’s unbelievable that he’s doing this, it’s something completely unlike him. Then again, working with a demon and betraying not just his siblings and cousins but basically all of his ancestors was also something he never expected to do, yet here he is, running at full speed, weaving through blocks in hopes that he doesn’t run into anyone he knows while he just tries to get far enough to move to the next step.

He stops when his lungs start to act a little too weird, jabbing the way it used to back when he was little and super sensitive to smoke. First things first, he gets his phone. Judar better not be busy.

“Hey, look who it is.”

“I’m outside, get over here right now.” Hakuryuu looks around to see if there are any particular landmarks or addresses written out in front of the shop doors. “Do you need an address?”

Judar laughs on the other side. “As if. It won’t even take me a second to find you. See?”

There’s a tap on Hakuryuu’s shoulder and there’s Judar, phone still against his ear.

“...I see.” Hakuryuu puts his phone down and hangs up. Judar mirrors his action. “How did you find me so quickly, did you put something to track me?”

“What? I don’t need anything like that.” There’s the smile of a braggart on Judar’s face. “It’s easy, really. You’re the least-human human I’ve seen around here. You sure you aren’t some scandalous exorcist bastard child?”

“I’m a full blooded human, I can assure you.” He snaps. “Anyway, you told me a week ago that you had an idea but only wanted to talk about it in person. So, what were you thinking about?”

“Huh. Did I say something about that?”

“Judar. We don’t have time for this.” Hakuryuu would whack Judar in the head if it would do anything.

“Hey, I’m not doing this on purpose. But like, you gotta jog my memory here, okay?” The saddest part is that he’s probably being completely honest and his memory is actually that spotty. How is he supposed to come up with any decent strategy with this mess of a demon?

“We were just talking about whether you were able to get more information, and that you should stop eating every weak demon that comes by your way because you’re stirring up enough attention from all the exorcists in the area anyway.” Hakuryuu sighs, but at least Judar looks like he’s starting to remember the conversation. “You better have actually stopped. Anyway, you also mentioned afterwards that there’s something else that might be able to help us, and when I asked, you said that you’ll tell me in person because it can’t be done through phone anyway.” Which, in retrospect, makes no sense for a reason because of course it’s not going to be something that can be done on the phone, there’s nothing they can actually do on the phone besides exchange some information.

“...Ah. Ahhhhhh okay now I remember.” Judar’s expression relaxes. “Now, how do I put this.”

“Preferably in the shortest way possible.”

“You’re so boring.” Judar frowns and his eyes narrow in the same way they did when he was eating Ithnan’s serpentine eyes. “First of all. You’re going to be our biggest weak point going against Arba. Even if we include Kougyoku.”

“...How so.” 

“This isn’t about your fighting ability or whatever. The problem is that you, unlike Kougyoku, are a medium. Being able to see spirits, cursed energy, all those little perks. That makes you a perfect vessel for any bitch demon who comes out of hell in a non-physical form. Hell, you’re probably a better vessel for her than your brother or twin or whatever because you got that weird… darker energy to you.” 

“So you’re saying if we ever try to confront her, she would just try to possess me instead.”

“Yeah. And she can probably just kill her current vessel before moving to the next one. I think that’s usually what she does, if I remember correctly, but it’s been a while.” Judar scratches the back of his head. “But anyway. That’s a huge weak point on our side, and I can’t really just block Arba’s spirit with a force field. Trust me, I’ve tried.” 

Hakuryuu’s not sure if he wants to know what that implies. “Does that mean I’ll have to stay on the remote side?” That would make him just like Koumei, and the thought of that leaves a sour tinge. All he does is crunch some numbers in the back, help with some strategies and spend his time looking at theory too far up his ass to be practical half of the time, if he isn’t busy napping in the afternoons.

“Nah, that’s just boring.” Judar takes a step forward and Hakuryuu’s stubbornness dictates that he stands still. “You should know what can be done, right?”

“...I’m not sure I follow.”

“Don’t play dumb, you’re not that stupid.” Judar leans in, looking up and down Hakuryuu as if he’s appraising an item for sale. “Possession means hijacking the soul inside the body, basically taking over it by force.”

“Yes, I know that much.” Hakuryuu also has a feeling about what Judar’s going to say next, but he won’t acknowledge it. He can’t. It’s too out there, too much to ask for someone like him even if he did betray the whole purpose of being an exorcist by cooperating with Judar to kill another demon. There must be something else that Judar knows, some secret about human souls that Judar has access to by virtue of being nonhuman and having lived for centuries, millennia longer than Hakuryuu.    


“You know… Not even the strongest demon can hijack a soul if it’s already owned by someone else.”

Ah. There it is. There goes any chance that Judar could have been talking about anything else. There’s no magic plant that could make Hakuryuu completely immune to curses. He can’t raise his inherent resistance into an impenetrable defense system that will burn Arba when she tries to invade his body and soul. There’s no special powder or medicine or toxin that can help. It’s all a simple matter of contracts.

“...No supernatural creature can infringe a contract. Even if it’s exclusive to two different parties.” One of the first lessons Hakuyuu taught him when he had to learn about the creatures that lurk in the darkness of people’s minds.

“Exactly.” To his surprise, there’s no smile on Judar’s face. In fact, there’s no real emotion being showcased at all. Only the silence that follows after a proposition too serious to joke about. 

Did Hakuryuu really sneak out of his house for this? “You can’t just… propose something like that out of the blue.”

“People have sold their souls for worse.” Judar’s expression remains blank, a slate on which Hakuryuu could project onto but refuses to. “They’ve sold their souls for knowledge that would be discovered in a hundred years, for fiddling skills, for riches and power that rot as quickly as their bodies. I think you’re about to get the best bargain a human can get for their soul.”

“You’re. You’re out of your mind.”

“So is Arba.”

“This isn’t some temporary arrangement or anything I can take back.” Hakuryuu grips the strap of his bag simply because there’s nothing else concrete he can hold onto. Judar’s nodding along. Hakuryuu’s just stating the obvious at this point. “There’s nothing like renting a soul for demons.”

“Nah, that kind of ruins the whole point.” Judar’s eyes haven’t blinked at all since he raised the proposition, it’s like they forgot that they have to pretend to be human. “Usually I’d say to take your time or whatever, cry it out if you need to, then call me back. But Arba’s not going to go away anytime soon. Keeping her out here is riskier for me than it is for you.”

“What, it’s not like she can possess you or your family.”

“No, I almost wish it was that easy.”

Hakuryuu frowns. “What does that mean?”

“It means you don’t know anything about what pain really means.”

He’s right. What’s eighteen years in a comfortable spot in society compared to thousands of years in hell? But at the same time, he’s not going to let himself be looked down upon like that. “I don’t know anything of your pain, and I will never be able to understand it. That’s why I can only think about this through how it will affect me. Me and my family.”

“You self-centered bastard.” Judar says but he’s chuckling. It’s weird how something that would be considered so rude and off-putting to humans would be taken in this oddly amiable way by a demon. Or maybe this is just a Judar thing. Not that the detail even matters.

“I would need to wish for something anyway, since being immune to possession is just a side effect of a contract.” Hakuryuu hates to even talk about this as if there is a possibility of him even considering a contract. To even approach the subject in any way besides a resound no. Yet he needs to know. “What would I even ask for?”

“Power, for one.”

“I don’t care for political power.”

“Eugh, not that kind of power. I meant supernatural power. Maybe some telekinesis, or mind reading. Maybe command over some lesser spirits, just name it and if your soul is worth enough, then you got it.”

Hakuryuu’s not sure what Judar means by worth it, if demons have some means of calculating the monetary worth of a given soul, but he’s not going to question that. Because he’s not going to take the offer. “Well I won’t be telling you anything because this isn’t happening.”

“...And I thought you were starting to be practical.”

“I am, and practical means I’m not going to do anything stupid. You’re out of your mind to ask something like this to an exorcist.”

“I’m not asking this to an exorcist, I’m asking this to you.” How different that would sound if it was literally any other situation. 

Hakuryuu hates that he has to look up to stare at Judar’s eyes, to show that he’s not going to budge. “You’re even more out of your mind to think that somehow that could persuade me.”

“Fine.” Judar takes a step back while Hakuryuu’s staying too still. “If your brother dies while I try to deal with Arba then don’t come crying to me about it.”

“I won’t need to.” says Hakuryuu but he’s never been less sure in his life.

“If you ever change your mind, call me. Otherwise, don’t even bother.” Judar walks off into an alley, steps silent despite all the gravel and on the floor, and disappears into the darkness, going off to wherever he goes in these long stretches of time. 

Hakuryuu really just risked himself by sneaking outside for nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe we're almost twenty chapters into this story... and yet there's still so much that needs to be told, so much story that needs to be unfolded. Thanks to everyone who has been following the story for this long, and reviews are always appreciated! I try to reply to them, but some of them slip my mind, especially when they're for older chapters, but I'll try to be as responsive as I can because I do enjoy hearing everyone's thoughts and speculations


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello sorry it's been a while since i last updated, travel has a way of disrupting schedules like that but i am back and here is chapter 20?? wow, it's hard to believe there's this much written yet so much left to convey haha. hope you don't mind more exposition heavy chapters (while still being shorter than the others. sorry. im tired.)

Rain always pours at the most inconvenient times. In a way, it’s helpful because the streets are near empty, cleared out from all the people who are too bothered to get a little wet and would rather waste their lives sitting inside with nothing to do. 

The water has a way of tempering emotions. It doesn’t extinguish whatever fire he’s feeling so much as reveal the molten wax underneath, disfigured, only partially formed. Wax that, now in the cold, sticks to its deformed ways with a newfound stubbornness because how dare Judar ask this of him. Hakuryuu allows him to have his way once and all he does is ask for more, something more high stakes, more blasphemous, more of Hakuryuu’s time until there’s not going to be anything left. For what is selling a soul but selling one’s future away? Damning the future for the present, the now, the threat that’s breathing hot right in front of their faces. 

But they don’t even know what Lilith, what Arba wants. At least Hakuryuu doesn’t, and he doubts Judar would be willing to share any time soon even if he does know.

It’s funny how just a week ago he would find that completely acceptable. It’s laughable how just a few days before that he was mentally preparing himself to kill Judar. There’s no words that could describe the wavering tides of their relationship, except maybe that Hakuryuu wants to know more. Just in case.

But knowing everything won’t change his mind about keeping his soul. (If he does that, there won’t be any more morals or standards worth clinging to.)

Although it started with a drizzle, the rain only starts to pour harder and harder as Hakuryuu walks back, making puddles that would make running worse than it’s worth. But it should be fine. He didn’t talk with Judar for too long so he should still be okay by the time he gets home. He can just change into dry clothes and throw everything into the dryer, since he’s got other laundry to do anyway, and then everything will be fine. Everything will be fine. 

Except nothing’s fine. He’s going to need to call Morgiana again in order to get more information and see if there are other fanalis either in the area or could be summoned for the sake of dealing with Arba. Whatever organization that’s in charge of keeping demons in hell must be going wild over this issue, and hopefully that would make them more willing to cooperate. Yeah. Fanalis have been able to keep the majority of demons locked down for centuries and always have active agents in Earth to deal with runaways. As soon as Hakuryuu’s out of the rain he can strategize accordingly and let the rest of his family know too. Cooperating with fanalis has always been welcome for exorcists in particularly severe situations. Not even Kouen would object to that, though Hakuryuu doesn’t really care if the older man agrees or not.

Stepping right into a deep puddle and feeling the water soak into his shoes wakes Hakuryuu up from his train of thought. He looks around, recognizing the bakery just across the street, the first one that he was dragged into back when his biggest worry was getting caught up in a couple thousand dollars of debt with a demon who is a bit stronger than he expected. He crosses the street and walks past it without another thought. 

Occasionally people would do a double take as he walks past them. It’s nothing different from the usual.

He walks around the house to the back window where the blankets are still hanging off from his room, completely soaked and probably prone to developing mold at this point. He grabs the bottomost blanket at tugs at it to check if it’s still holding steady and climbs up the wall once he confirms it’s safe. Careful not to accidentally slip, he pulls himself over the window with an iron grip. He hangs over the edge of the window, pressed against his torso just a little too much for comfort and tries to find a grip with his feet but they keep slipping at the wall.

“Welcome back.”

Hakuryuu looks up. Hakuren’s standing there, arms crossed, while Kougyoku is peeking from behind him, oversized sleeves covering her mouth but visibly distressed with the way her eyebrows are furrowed.

“Ren-nii, I-”

“Don’t bother.” So Hakuryuu doesn’t and pushes himself into the room, using his hands to break his landing. Wet locks of hair cling to his face such that he can’t see the left side of Hakuren’s face. One side of a glare is more than enough.

“I thought it was obvious that you aren’t allowed to sneak out.” 

“You can’t expect me to just sit by while Yuu-nii is in trouble.” Hakuryuu pulls up the blankets, squeezing out some of the water as it comes in. “That would just be irresponsible.”

Hakuren laughs, but it’s not the type of laugh where he’s pretending to be cheerful to relieve the tension in the room. That’s not necessary if it’s his own issues. “You can’t possibly be saying that trying to work with a demon is more responsible than listening to your family.” He’s cringing at his own statement though. Maybe it’s because it makes him sound old.

“What makes you think that I was trying to work with demons again?” Hakuryuu hates how the soaked clothes make him cold, make him shiver like he’s afraid or something. “I could have been trying to talk with Morgiana again. You know, the fanalis.”

“If you were, you wouldn’t have sneaked out.” Hakuren’s gripping his sleeves. “And you just said you “could have” instead of you “actually were” doing that. You were never a good liar.”

Hakuryuu takes a look at Kougyoku, who takes a step back. He’ll have to deal with her later. “Yeah. I’m honest. Unlike you.”

“Ryuu.”

“It’s not like you haven’t been hiding things from me either. None of you have given me any details on what happened to Ei-nee, unless you just decided to forget about it because Yuu-nii matters more to you than the rest of us.”

There’s a fist to the wall, not quite enough to make a hole, but loud enough to serve as a warning signal. Something like that might work when Hakuryuu was younger and timid, barely able to uncling himself from his brothers’ shirts to say hello to a new child his age. But he’s not a baby anymore.

“Hakuryuu, I swear to god.” It’s been a long time since Hakuren has said any of their names in full. “Why are you- why do you have to turn everything like we’re actively holding something against you? You were still getting used to the prosthetic - you still aren’t completely good with that arm yet. We didn’t want you to worry while you were recovering!”

“Well what about all the other things then?”

“What other things.”

“Like I don’t know,” Hakuryuu throws the blankets to the side of the room where they’ll inevitably soak through the carpet. “Maybe literally every single time any of you get injured? There’s been so many times that I can’t even begin to count and every single time all of you would keep your mouth shut as if I can’t handle learning about what happened.” 

“It’s so that you don’t have to get concerned.”

“I was concerned anyway. Not telling me made me more concerned if that’s your biggest worry aside from actually. Solving the problem.”

There’s a deep sigh that shakes at the end. “And how would you have been able to help, anyway? You’re still a kid.” 

Hakuryuu bites his lip. “You and Yuu-nii were taking major jobs by the time you were my age.”

“Because we were the oldest and we needed to be ready in case anything happened to our parents, Ryuu you know this.”

Hakuryuu wipes the hair out of his face. “And what if anything happened to either of you? Oh wait, it’s too late to think about that. And what about when-” He throws his bag onto the ground. The wind’s blowing and throwing raindrops onto his back. “What about when  _ I  _ was possessed?”

If Hakuren was about to speak, the words are now lost. 

“I don’t even know the name of that demon, doesn’t that sound ridiculous?” Hakuryuu’s arms are half reaching out, hands facing upwards as if maybe an answer would fall from the sky if he demands for it long enough. “All of you just stopped talking about it like it never happened, like I’d just forget it just because I was a kid then?” In reality, it’s the only thing he can remember from that age.

Hakuren’s lips part just slightly, only to let silence out. Fine, Hakuryuu will just continue talking then. “How are we going to get Yuu-nii back? Is it going to be like last time, like what happened to me? I don’t want to lose any more of our family. Ren-nii.”

“Ryuu…” Hakuren walks toward him and Hakuryuu stiffens up, preparing for whatever may come… but the window behind him gets shut. 

“We never learned what that… thing was.” Hakuren’s staring out the window. “Nothing should have been able to, or even want to hijack such a minor ritual. It pisses me off that we never found out. It pisses me off more that Yuu-nii and I pushed you too hard to learn. Guess our parents were right.”

“I. I see.” Hakuryuu doesn’t know where all his anger went. It seems like Hakuren doesn’t either, with the way he’s leaning his forehead against the window instead of smashing it. Guess that’s something that runs in the family.

“...You know who possessed Yuu-nii, don’t you.” Hakuren looks straight at Hakuryuu.

There’s no point fighting anymore. “Yeah. I do.”

“Then tell me.”

He doesn’t want to say it, saying it again just makes it feel more real, instead of a nightmare like all the scares he’s been having recently. “It’s Lilith. Apparently she has some connection to the other demon and was therefore able to hijack the ritual.” He’s not sure why he still refuses to say Judar. Maybe giving that name over to his family is giving away too much power. Maybe he’s just… no.

Hakuren forces a laugh again. It’s the usual kind, except it comes out hoarse, like it’s been months since he’s made that noise. “Nice one.”

“It’s not a joke.”

“...I know.”

The rain continues to color the silence between them. It’s not exactly an agreement, just a quiet, tired pause. 

 

* * *

The thing about family is that you could reach a resolution one day and then fall apart so quickly the next it’s as though the former has never happened in the first place. 

_ Kougyoku: I’m so sorry.. I’d come over but I’m afraid they’ll find out somehow _

It’s hard to text with one hand, but it’s a lot better than most other tasks.

_ Hakuryuu: It’s fine you have mor’s number right _

_ Kougyoku: Yeah! Will talk to her _

Hakuryuu puts his phone down on the desk and looks down at the stump that is his arm. If Hakuren was that angry, he might as well have taken both legs while he was at it. 

Without either Kougyoku or Judar around, the room ends up awfully quiet. With little that Hakuryuu can do, at least not effectively with only one arm, his mind wanders. He has to admit, he doesn’t really remember the experience of actually being possessed. Maybe it’s something that’s been repressed, or maybe there’s nothing to remember, maybe possession is the same as falling into a deep sleep. It might as well have been, since his six year old self had no way of defending himself from demons. 

Part of him hopes that his brother doesn’t feel anything. The other part of him hopes that he can break out through sheer willpower, but that’s just wishful thinking and he should have left that in the rainstorm with the possibility of working with Judar.

It’s raining again today, like time is moving nowhere at all. If Hakuryuu stares at it long enough, the lines of raindrops falling look like they’re rising up into the sky instead, going backwards, backwards, gone.

If they could go back in time twelve years ago, all the way back to the day of his first ritual performance and stopped it from ever happening, the existence known as Hakuryuu Ren would be gone. Well, not entirely gone, but different enough that he might as well have a different name. The what if’s are so strong that Hakuryuu doesn’t even feel a sense of loss or envy that many have over all that could have been, because this is just who he is. He’s just the ashes left over from a ritual gone wrong, a simple channeling of ancestors that led to demon possession.

If he closes his eyes, he can still smell the burning flesh of his parents. Hear the house starting to crumble around them, see Hakuyuu’s face as he’s carried out of the fire, burns on his arms but not nearly as bad as what Hakuryuu had, drifting in and out of consciousness. 

He opens his eyes before it’s too late. Or maybe he is a little too late, because all that’s echoing inside his head is the tormented cry of his mother burning. They sacrificed their lives to save him, but that doesn’t mean they get to dodge the agony of having their flesh consumed by hellfire.

If the folklore is true, then they’re still burning in it to this day, far far away where he can only replay what he remembers to imagine what’s happening right now. 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just procrastinate on a chapter because it has some important parts to it and then you end up bullshitting them in the end anyway and that's just how life is ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Sweets have been tasting off recently. They’re a little too much, a little too wrong. Maybe Judar’s gotten sick of them. That sucks, he’s really been enjoying them. And it leaves him with way fewer places to visit, though since Hakuryuu’s probably never going to talk to him, he can just go back to eating whatever weaker demons and spirits he comes by. So what if other exorcists might be finding that suspicious? They should be focusing on the old hag, and if they aren’t then they might as well die anyway. He’s been too soft recently anyway, not actually killing the last person that tried to stop him.

Eh, there’s no point thinking about that. He’s not the sentimental or ruminating type. If you start doing that at his age, there won’t be any end to all the thoughts about what if’s and all that could have been. 

There’s a park that’s been completely vacated because of the rain that now looks more like a snapshot of an abandoned city than a place that kids would actually play in. Perfect. 

Judar walks over to the swings, sliding all the water off the side of the seat with a flick of his wrist. God. Imagine needing to use a napkin or a cloth to dry things off and still deal with a gross, damp surface. Sounds so annoying. It's shaky when he sits down in it. He doesn't know what he expected, honestly. The chains creak as he barely swings back and forth too, and it really adds to that vacant, abandoned atmosphere that's perfect for some bastard to ruminate in.

If Judar's like anyone else, he'd be thinking about how to run away, hide in the corners to avoid going back to _her._ Coming out to Earth is actually kind of like that if he thinks enough about it (which he won't, he hasn't done that before and will continue to refuse to do.) She'd laugh if she sees him acting like a runaway coward, like that slightly off-kilter child that bubbles with joy while yanking the hiding cat's tail. And then she'd just throw him back to the palace just as easily.

He can't fight like this, but he can't just run either. The chains of the swing tremble from his grip.

He needs to get stronger. The flesh of succubi and cursed spirits barely do anything, like sure they make him stronger but the difference in power makes it almost useless. He needs some stronger demons. And at least one strong soul. Exorcists make strong souls. Mediums make especially strong souls. Hakuryuu would be perfect, and he'd benefit from it too. But of course, he doesn't get that. 

They both need to get stronger.

Suddenly, there's a chill down his spine. Maybe the rain got colder all of a sudden? Slouched and leaning against one side of the swing, Judar turns his head back.

Ah.

The rain freezes mid-fall into sleet, scratching his face in case he didn't notice what's in front of him, an unnecessary cold wake up call.

"My little Judar, are you having fun here?"

It sounds weird coming from a low, masculine voice. If this brother or whatever is anything like Hakuryuu, that grin on her face doesn't suit the flesh puppet either. Speaking of that, this guy looks way too much like Hakuryuu. It's like someone took Hakuryuu, scrubbed the scars off his face, and fast-forwarded however many years.

"Yeah." He's not going to give Arba the luxury of hearing something to talk about, or something she can explain.

"You don't need to act so cold." Arba walks up to Judar and places one hand to the chain to stabilize the little movement left, stifling whatever freedom of movement there was. This bitch. "I'm not going to ask you to come back. I'll be staying here for a while anyway, I'm glad you're here."

She never asks. She just does. "What are you up here for then?" 

"Hm?" Her grip on the swing is so relaxed it's unnerving. "Nothing particularly special. Just the usual thing you would like to do on a visit to Earth. Aren't you doing the same thing?"

He might have considered it. At some point. "Maybe."

She smiles. "That's so like you."

That statement he gave doesn't mean anything. She doesn't know anything besides wound types and trapping methods. But that's more than enough for some people and most demons.

"So? Did you want to say anything else? Or did you just want to stare at me up close instead of afar?”

"I just wanted to check in on you." Her smile widens to creep out of the edge of human, but it's far from the ugliest that Judar has seen. "Just in case you were thinking of anything foolish."

She knows. But having the initiative is something Judar couldn't realistically expect. Not that it doesn't stop him from trying. If he didn't have a stupid amount of stubbornness, he would basically be a fish rotting on the ground now.

"I just want to wreck a couple of things, that's all." Judar shrugs.

Arba ruffles his hair, bringing her fingers down to the root of his braid. "So the usual, then. How cute."

"Yeah, just the usual." The usual urge for matricide. Just demon things.

Arba laughs. It sounds too normal to be her, and too close to whatever man she's taken might laugh like. But what does he know, he has no idea how Hakuryuu laughs. 

She might have said something more, and if she did then Judar might have replied to them, almost make a small conversation even. If they did, it obviously didn't matter because now Judar's still sitting at the swing set, alone once again and free to swing around at whatever erratic rhythm he wants. The rain is still falling as sleet, if anything, the raindrops grow after they freeze into something more like balls of hail. It's almost painful.

It's funny because he doesn't remember most interactions with her, only the bitter aftertaste of dealing with the hag that won't stop being the biggest bitch in hell. Maybe that's why centuries pass by like nothing. Maybe. The last… whatever amount of time he's spent here, out of hell drifting around different bakeries and cafes wasting time with Hakuryuu and Kougyoku, that amount of time feels almost as long as a century cooped up in that tacky palace. Maybe that's why some demons always seek for opportunities to come back, even if the most the weakest ones can do is cause havoc in toilets and ruin some random guy's day?

Hm. Probably not exactly that. Judar wouldn't remember even if he broke two million toilets. It's probably more because he wants to keep prodding at Hakuryuu and whatever weird energy that's coming out of his soul, those dark waves that wander back and forth like they follow their own tides. Judar wants to stand in the evening sands that are just starting to cool and feel the ink waves seep into the holes he started making just by existing, swallowing it like nothing and going further and further. Because a force of nature never cares about anything but its own whims. If that whim is hungry and destructive and moves forward even if it consumes all the dumb sandcastles everyone else has been wasting their lives on, then how could Judar say no to it?

Or something like that. He mostly just wants to know what it'd be like to hold that soul, the short moment it's in his hands before he has to stash it away. A strong human soul, filled to the brim with raw life energy. It'd be stronger than any old castle scholar that was tempted to sell his soul to the devil in order to get some useless trivia. Learning that shit doesn't matter if you could just get the power to bend those rules to your will. If you're not selling your soul for the chance of domination, what's the point?

Judar finds himself back on his feet and walking away from the empty playground, the swing still echoing his movements and dying off with every iteration.

Maybe Kougyoku's right in that he's just a moth to a light when he finds someone who seems to be the right type. Even if she thinks that he's some poor, pitiful victim that bounces around different faces of the same abuser or whatever. But who cares, conventions for human relationships don't apply to him at all. It won't apply to Hakuryuu either once Judar gets what he wants. Hakuryuu will want it too. Waves move towards the land even in the low tide for a reason.

Hail turns back to sleet and melts once again to rain. Judar keeps walking.

 

* * *

 

It’s exactly 6 pm and there’s a knock on the door. Hakuryuu slides the bookmark in the tome he’s been looking over for the third time and opens the door, sliding over just enough for Hakuei to come in with a dinner tray, with brown rice that’s been microwaved twice over, served with leftover stew and vegetables. The state of food here starts getting bland quickly without him, but at least his sister hasn’t taken the initiative to cook yet.

She doesn’t speak until she sets the tray on the desk, “You should join us for dinner again.”

But she already has the tray prepared and everything, it’s obvious she knows he isn’t going to just come back tot he dining table like nothing happened. He doesn’t have his arm, obviously shit happened.

“Thank you for the meal.” It comes off a bit too polite and just added, “But I’m not going to join if it’s just going to lead to another argument.”

Hakuei takes a step back from the desk and looks at him straight in the eyes. That scar on her chin that she got from that fight with a demon never fails to rile him up. Not to mention the other scars that are definitely hiding under her shirt. How many are there? Hakuryuu’s not sure if he wants to know. “Hakuryuu, I understand that you’re upset but you can’t just keep doing this.”

“So I should just let him do what he wants, keep my arm under locks when we need as much help as we can get?”

“Look, I don’t agree with Ren-nii doing that. But he’s not going to give it back until you two sit down and have a proper talk about it.”

“And how am I supposed to do that if he clearly doesn’t respect what I say.”

“Hakuryuu…” Her shoulders slump as she sighs. “Ren-nii can get a bit rash, I know, but he wants the best for all of us in the end.”

Yeah, Hakuryuu understands that, theoretically. But Hakuren’s doing a terrible, piss poor job at it and he doesn't look like he’s going to improve any time soon. “I don’t see you speaking up against it. Has he even done anything about the situation yet?”

“We’re not in the position to do anything rash-”

“We’re not in the position to stay still and leave things as they are, either! Who knows what kind of plan that demon is trying to pull off, with Yuu-nii’s body!”

Hakuei sighs. “I’m not here to argue that we need to do something, but if you want to be able to do anything you need to come down and talk about it. You can’t just… let your anger to fester when that’s just going to keep you stuck here longer.”

Hakuryuu looks away. “...Bring him here then.”

“No, you come downstairs.”

“You brought the food up here anyway, he might as well come up here instead of having both of us move down.”

Hakuei looks at the tray and back at Hakuryuu before heading to the door. “Finish eating first, then. After that, you can come downstairs and we can all settle this.” She makes one more look at him, her hand settled on the doorknob. “I want us to get along, you can only rely on your family in times like these. Do you understand, Hakuryuu?”

Hakuryuu doesn’t respond, which makes the sound of the door closing louder. 

Obviously, he wants to be able to work together, but how can he expect to be taken seriously if Hakuren took his arm over a squabble that could have easily stayed on the low end? It was just breakfast, and Hakuryuu made a minor comment that ended up spiraling into another argument about his choice to work with Judar to kill Ithnan and how that somehow makes him responsible for all of the issues occurring right now. (If Hakuren actually knew everything, he would have a point, but even then it was their fault for going ahead and trying to summon Judar directly. And they call him reckless.)

Hakuryuu sits down and eats the meal without noticing a single flavor, textures all mushing together too the way that all food turns into mush with enough chewing. The spinach is definitely bordering on the edge of spoiling, though. Not that it matters, he feels close to the edge of grabbing his prosthetic back and beating someone with it. He takes a deep breath after drinking his glass of water. No, Hakuei was right in that he does need to talk with Hakuren. What she’s wrong about is that she really expects that Hakuryuu will just apologize and get over it, follow his older brothers’ words like he has no mind of his own. She never says it, but it’s obvious with how she always sides with them in the end, no matter how arbitrary the reasoning. Sure, Hakuryuu has had times where he’s been wrong, he’ll admit that much. But his conviction won’t change, they need to be doing more right now and making him unable to do anything is only slowing all of them down. Not to mention just the sheer insult of having his arm stolen like that. 

Hakuryuu refuses to go downstairs after finishing his meal and opens the window instead to let the smell of the food out. One of them will come back up eventually, maybe even both. If they don’t, then so be it, it’ll just extend the issue further and that’s just the result of their own incorrect opinions and pride. 

He does need some way to deal with all this pent up frustration before he just makes a fool of himself, though. He never thought of himself as the type to pace and fidget around, but he assumes that’s just what happens to people who are so used to doing things all the time and having multiple projects to juggle and then suddenly all of those are yanked away from them. It’s annoying, but it doesn’t stop him from walking around the perimeter of his room. He still can’t believe that Hakuren leaped to the conclusion that Judar must be manipulating him even now, even when Hakuryuu always had free will over what he does and does not want to do. He wanted to get rid of Ithnan because he knew the demon was a threat, therefore he agreed to cooperate for a hunt. He doesn’t want to give up the sanctity of his soul, therefore he turned down Judar’s offer. But letting Hakuren know that such an offer was given in the first place is a surefire way to make him explode and probably break some plates, especially since Hakuyuu isn’t around to cool him down. 

It’s weird how they even each other’s temper down. Though while Hakuyuu’s anger almost always manifested in the form of an overly concerned mother with all the right intentions in all the wrong places, Hakuren’s anger is just the same as any other man’s - self-justified and unsatisfied until something breaks and someone bends over. 

Hakuryuu looks at the open window, looks like the rain turned into sleet and some of it is getting inside. He keeps it open anyway.

He misses Hakuyuu. 

Where did it all go wrong?

He knows the answer, they all know the answer even if the rest of the family doesn’t know the details. Judar said he had a feeling that the other demon, whatever her name was, might have been playing them by giving information about Ithnan and nudging him to kill the snake bastard as soon as possible. But Judar didn’t think too much about it, didn’t even think to mention that it was some other party that told him about Ithnan and instead came to Hakuryuu like he found this out by his damn self. Even then, Hakuryuu made a mistake by trusting Judar, trusting the sense of fear and pressure that made him think it’ll be okay so long as he makes sure that he’s not tied up in any other contract by cooperating with Judar. 

There’s something about the whole situation that still bothers Hakuryuu, however. 

_“Yeah, yeah I know all the titles.” Judar waves his hand and stares up at the ceiling. “The good thing is that we know that Ithnan’s dead for sure. The summoning probably required a large sacrifice and I checked with Dunya, they wiped out all the other spare bodies. But...” He pauses, lost in thought. “...Never mind, I was never good with summoning rituals anyway.”_

_“What were you thinking?” Hakuryuu brings his chair closer so he could actually read Judar’s expression._

_“Well. You’re the exorcist, you probably know these things better than me.” Judar crosses his arms. “But to bring out a demon as strong as that, don’t you need people who have a connection to them, or some other tools to act as a connection? I mean. I’m obviously one but Ithnan doesn’t really count because he died… Is that enough?”_

_“It depends on the demon. I could look into it-”_

_“Nah, don’t.”_

Was Judar really enough of a connection to pull one of the most infamous demons out of hell? Sure, Hakuryuu must admit that Judar is incredibly strong, but there’s no way that a single connection would be sufficient, there has never been a written case of someone summoning her. In addition, Judar is right that Ithnan technically doesn’t count if he’s acting as the sacrifice. But there wasn’t a single person besides them there, at least no demons around that either of them could sense. Whatever demon that gave Judar the information was way too far away to contribute. Was there some artifact acting as a connection? It’s hard to imagine how it wouldn’t have broken through the course of the fight, considering Judar froze all the water around them.

There is one thing left though. He doesn’t want to admit it, and maybe Judar didn’t want to admit it either and that’s why he cut the topic off so abruptly. If demons are able to be that considerate.

No one ever figured out what possessed him on his first attempt at a ritual at age six. Or maybe they did, and just persisted in playing dumb because the demon was sealed away and therefore there was no point in potentially triggering their baby brother. Something like that. 

Hakuryuu has no evidence but there’s a sinking feeling in his gut that wants to drag everything else down with it. There’s no way. There’s no way that he could prove this, except maybe confronting Arba in person but he’d have better luck trying to survive a drop off a twelve-story building. And yet something coiling deep inside him tells him that there’s no other way. 

He closes the window and shuts his eyes, fingers pressed against his temples. Deep breath in, deep breath out. He shouldn’t feel dizzy this quickly, the thought of this shouldn’t be making him reel. This is just a gut feeling, it could be completely wrong. Yet even the possible insinuation that it could be her, that she’s not only responsible for taking Hakuyuu but also for what happened to him, their parents, their whole way of life up to that point…

There’s a knock on the window. Hakuryuu brings his palm flat to the glass and opens his eyes to see red staring back at him. Judar. His hair’s drenched and yet somehow whatever eye makeup he’s got on is left intact. 

Judar meets his hand on the opposite end of the glass. 

“I need to talk to you.” Hakuryuu hears the muffled voice. He doesn’t feel Judar’s fingers curl up and scratch the window.

“I’ve got some questions for you too.” 


	22. Chapter 22

“Ryuu, stop being stubborn and open the door.” 

Silence.

Hakuren takes a deep breath and knocks on the door louder. “Look, I do want to talk to you but you’re making it really difficult for all of us right now so you should just get over here already.” Hakuei and Kouen are standing behind him, keeping their lips sealed and eyes open. When there’s still no response, Hakuren goes straight for the doorknob.

“Wait,” Hakuei tries to interject, “Maybe we should come back later?”

“Yeah right, like he’s going to change his mind.” Hakuren swings open the door, catching it when it practically bounces off the wall. 

Everything in the room looks like it’s in its place. The bed is made perfectly as if ready for a hotel room, there’s one book left open on the desk but otherwise remains organized and clean, with the chair tucked in just enough. There’s some water by the window, even though it’s closed. 

“Ryuu? Are you in the bathroom?” Hakuren walks over to the bathroom door at the opposite end and knocks but there’s no response and not even the slightest sound of running water. Upon opening the door and only finding a dark room, it’s clear Hakuryuu’s not here at all.

“I can’t believe he- god.” Hakuren grits his teeth. Did Hakuryuu manage to sneak downstairs and leave through the front door? There’s no way he could have gone through the window again with just one arm, that’s why Hakuren did it even though it’s obviously a horrible move to make. At least until they could talk it out more reasonably, at least until Hakuryuu could see that what he’s doing is wrong.

No, there is a way for Hakuryuu to escape.

“It looks like we’re dealing with the worst-case scenario.” Kouen hands over a note to Hakuren.

_ I apologize for not talking about this, but I know that none of you would listen. I won’t be coming back for a while, not until either I get Yuu-nii back or get revenge for him, hopefully, the former.  _

_ Please don’t bother contacting me unless it’s to cooperate. I would love to work with all of you but I can’t stand the amount of bickering over the little details about the morals of our methods when there’s clearly a huge threat in front of us. _

_ Best, _

_ Hakuryuu _

Hakuren bites his lip and passes the note to Hakuei without a word so she can read it too. Hakuryuu really did it. He really just decided to take the word of a single demon over his entire family, and then has the gall to say that it’s all for the sake of their brother. Unbelievable. If someone told Hakuren just a month ago that Hakuryuu would choose to work with a demon, he would have laughed. Their entire way of living got turned upside down because of demons, and it left the strongest mark on Hakuyuu and Hakuryuu. To think now one of them is possessed and the other might as well be with the dumb decisions he’s making. 

He fucked up. He should have tried to control his temper better while talking to Hakuryuu, fill the reasonable older brother that Hakuyuu left behind. 

Hakuei’s reaching out for her phone but Kouen puts his hand over hers. “Don’t bother. If anything, he might just do something more rash.”

“...I wish you weren’t right.” It’s easy for Kouen to keep his head calm, or at least calmer than the rest of them. Maybe he should have been the one to talk to Hakuryuu. Actually no, it might have pissed him off even more. It’s hard to tell what won’t set Hakuryuu off once he starts getting frustrated. 

“I would say to at least wait a day,” says Kouen. “In case he suddenly comes back. If it seems that he really is serious, then we’ll have to do something about it.”

“Yeah…” Hakuren would crumple the note if it’s in his hands. “Something. Is everyone else at home?”

“Koumei and Kouha are still out, but they should be back before too long.”

“Tell them to come back faster. We have to figure something out.” 

 

* * *

“Why are we staying in a place like this? Shouldn’t we be planning out some sort of strategy?”

To be fair, this place actually isn’t bad at all. It’s one of those luxury hotel rooms where the entire outer-facing wall is windows and there’s a king-sized bed right in the middle of the room, surrounded with modern rectangular lights. Hakuryuu would call it nice if it wasn’t for the concerning fact that the shower is easily visible from the bed with only a glass wall to prevent the water from splashing all over the place. There’s not even a frosted glass section for the lower half, which would be fine if this is a hotel room for one person (which it technically is, except Hakuryuu’s here now and he’s definitely going to need to wash at some point.) At least there’s a door for the toilet.

“Don’t you need sleep or something?” Judar plops on the bed, hands on the back of his head. “Besides, it’s not like we can just charge in right now and expect to win.” 

“I mean, I suppose. But why do you have a room like this?”

“What, you don’t like a nice hotel room?” Judar looks up at Hakuryuu from the bed. “It was easier to snatch one of these than some random apartment with people living in it.”

There’s a generous amount of space between them when Hakuryuu sits down. “But I thought you don’t need to sleep.” The vast majority of supernatural creatures don’t.

“Don’t need to sleep every day, but I’m tired…” Judar yawns. “You gonna be using the shower first?”

“You can go ahead.” Judar rolls himself off of the bed to walk to the bathroom and Hakuryuu turns so that there’s no way he’ll sneak a peek while Judar showers in that completely transparent glass wall. He doesn’t want to look at more of the demon’s body than he needs to, and he most certainly doesn’t want an excuse for Judar to be ogle at him in return. 

The sound of hot water fills his ears from behind but is interrupted by a sharp hiss and curse.

“Don’t burn yourself.” Hakuryuu makes sure to not turn his head.

“Shut up. It was just hotter than I expected.”

“Haven’t you lived here for a while?”

“Only since I came here, it’s barely been any time at all.” Hakuryuu would say that a couple of months is more than plenty of time to get used to how to use your own shower. 

“Sure.” He says instead. The humidity’s getting to the entire place easily because of the whole open room concept, as if the borders between them are melting bit by bit. Whatever, he’s just making weird connections in his head. 

He looks down at his left arm for the fifteenth time, watches as he curls up his new fist. It looks more like a dragon’s arm ripped out and forced into a shape vaguely resembling a human’s - the overall shape and form are anatomically correct, but Hakuryuu would be impressed if there was anybody else in the world who had a pitch-black arm that isn’t a charred corpse. He brings his normal, human hand to the arm, moving down from the elbow to the knuckles, feeling every ridge where a row of scales stops and another begins, reflecting a bit of muted light from the recessed lighting above. He uncurls his fist and rotates his hand, observing how the inside of the palm is just as dark as the outside, and how the ends of his nails are sharp and curve just enough to be considered claws. Hakuryuu’s going to need gloves the next time he goes out, especially since they’ll most likely need to hoard supplies. 

Hakuryuu doesn’t feel anything looking at this dark, inhuman yet human arm. He should be feeling something, or at least that’s what he thinks. Maybe this is some sort of side effect, or maybe it’s just taking him some time to process what just happened. He did abandon the rest of his family after all, even if it’s for their own good in the end. 

Judar takes forever to shower, but it makes sense with the sheer volume of hair he has. Hakuryuu still doesn’t turn around even when he hears the sound of water being squeezed out of Judar’s hair and the general rustling that comes after stepping out of the shower. 

“I have a bathrobe on, you know.” There’s the sound of more water being squeezed out of hair. Hakuryuu turns his head just enough to see a mass of white in his periphery vision then looks up to see that Judar is in fact covered up with a white bathrobe that must have come along with the rest of the hotel room amenities. He looks like he’s applying some kind of oil onto his locks. 

“You look like you’re about to get a spa treatment.”

“Might give myself one actually.” Judar pumps out more oil from a small bottle, weaving his fingers through his hair. “The stuff I have at home is better but wow, sheet masks are really convenient.”

“Can I shower now?”

“Sure.”

“And you won’t be looking or anything.”

“Oh, you’re worried about that?” Judar laughs as he sits down with his back and hair to the fan. “You already gave me your soul, but all of a sudden you’re going to be all protective about hiding your body?”

Unfortunately, he has a point. “...Just focus on drying your hair.”

“You don’t have to tell me that.” Judar starts towel-drying the front of his hair that isn’t getting much of the fan’s wind.

The demon’s still sitting at an angle where it’ll be easy for him to get a good look at Hakuryuu, but he’s just going to keep being a complete brat if Hakuryuu tries to push the point any further, so he walks around the glass wall to get into the bathroom that feels nothing like a separate room except for the small enclosed toilet space. At least taking off his clothes is a lot easier now with the new arm, the only thing he has to worry about it accidentally getting the claws stuck in the fabric. 

Hakuryuu twists the water towards the hot side, hoping that some steam could cover part of the glass and at least obscure his image a little. It’s not really doing much because the heat escapes out into the main room but he steps in any way, wincing at the temperature and quickly adjusting it to something more tolerable. He cleans himself up quick, which is easy with not nearly as much hair and actually being efficient with shower time. He only looks through the glass after he’s finished and turned the water off and Judar has most definitely been looking.

“Judar.” 

“What? Like I said, I already got your soul.”

“You can’t just- nevermind.” Hakuryuu just hurries out of there and wraps a towel around his waist since there isn’t another bathrobe around. “At least dry your hair.”

“I am! This is a lot of hair to dry.” 

Whatever. Hakuryuu dries his own hair off with a towel until it’s not too damp. There’s no space to change his clothes in private unless he goes to the toilet, now that he thinks about it. So that’s what he does, though he only brought a couple of spare clothes, none of which are particularly sleepwear worthy. It doesn’t matter, he’s not here for a vacation.

“How do you like your new arm?” Judar’s brushing his hair while it’s slowly getting dried by the fan. 

“It’s much better than the prosthetic, feels natural even.” Hakuryuu sits back down on the bed. “Is there anything it can do in particular?”

“Hm… It’s stronger than other human arms, that’s for sure. Plus claws, which is always a bonus. Probably more heat resistant. You didn’t really ask for much regarding that so I didn’t think too much about it. Did you want it to have super flexibility?”

“...I’m not sure if that would be necessary.” He’s not sure if he really wants to see his arm being able to stretch and contort in a superhero cartoon-like manner. There’s a reason you only see that in comics.

“Well, then that’s that. The main perk you wanted was some supernatural powers anyway, right?” Judar dries the ends of his hair with a towel and then starts to braid it all together once sufficiently dry. “I hope you’re a quick learner.”

“There’s no need to doubt me.” Hakuryuu glances at the cold grey sofa that looks more like it was manufactured for aesthetic than comfort. “You won’t be sleeping, right? Then I can take the bed.”

“What? No, I’m super tired. There’s more than enough room in the bed.”

Hakuryuu’s lips twitch into a frown but he could practically hear Judar reasoning that anything is okay now, and to an extent, he’s right. That doesn’t mean Hakuryuu wants any of that, though. “...Fine. Stick to your side.”

“What do you think I am, a succubus?”

“I’m increasingly convinced that you are.”

Judar crosses his arms, braid now tied up. “Hey, I don’t just sleep with anybody.”

Hakuryuu stares at him.

“HEY.”

“If you’re so tired, shouldn’t you be going to sleep?”

Judar groans but gets up and falls face-first onto the opposite side of the bed. A couple of seconds later, he’s properly buried under the blankets and turns so that he’s facing Hakuryuu. It’s startling how casual things become with him even after everything. Hakuryuu leans back on his hands so he can actually see the other’s face. 

“But we should make a plan for tomorrow first.”

Judar frowns while clutching one of the extra pillows. “Didn’t you just tell me to go to sleep?”

“But if we go to sleep without some intentions, we’ll just waste the next day.” 

“It’s just…” There’s a yawn. “Training. You gotta learn how to use all your shiny new powers, yeah.”

“You make it sound like I’m the only one in need of training.”

“Well, you said you didn’t want me to be eating other demons left and right.” Hakuryuu doubts the other has actually been taking that to heart. “And I’ve been at this a lot longer than you.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re perfect, you should tell me more about your abilities so we can work off of there.”

Judar rolls onto his back, still clinging to the extra pillow. “Fine, fine. But we’ll do that tomorrow, I’m sooooo tired.”

Hakuryuu sighs and succumbs to the blankets because as much as he’d hate to admit it, his eyelids are starting to feel heavy too. He makes sure to keep a decent distance even in bed, though, and it seems that Judar is respecting that. “Fine, goodnight then.” 

“Mm, goodnight.” 

Closing his eyes is easy enough, but exhaustion just stays over him like a weight pushing him down without the relief of sleep. Maybe it’s because he knows Judar is right there, a little bit apart from him and hugging a pillow instead of hogging the blankets, but there nonetheless. Though he supposes that can’t be helped with what happened. Hakuryuu runs his hand down his neck, massaging the part of the throat that still simmers, a lingering burn from that forced, tearing sensation that shouldn’t exist because it’s not like he lost anything physical. It might be better to call it a remnant of emotion he was feeling at that time, something he can’t quite put a name on. 

_ “So you’re finally ready?”  _

_ Hakuryuu takes a step into the hotel room, which looks remarkably intact if Judar has really been staying here this whole time. But it works, it gets them out of the pouring rain and they won’t have to deal with strangers passing by. “Just hurry up already.” _

_ “You don’t wait once you finally decide, do you?” _

_ “It’s not as if there’s anything beyond the ritual itself, right?” _

_ Judar closes the door behind him. The twist of the lock clicks loud enough to ring. “Guess you’re right, yeah. Now, normally I like to suck the soul out of men’s dicks so take your pants off.” _

_ “No.” _

_ “Wow, not even acting surprised? Okay. Is that how you think of me?” Judar walks up closer, closer until it’s hard to see anything but his red eyes. Hakuryuu lifts his head as little as he needs to. _

_ “Yes, now just get to the actual contract, already.” _

_ “You’re not gonna change your mind on what you want in exchange? There’s no going back once I do this.” Judar’s head tilts to the left, glancing up and down, probably taking another good look at Hakuryuu’s scar even though it hasn’t changed since the day they met.  _

_ “I told you that I’m already set.” Hakuryuu frowns. _

_ “Great, I wouldn’t want to do it with someone who decides to change their mind last second. I hate wishy-washy people the most.” Judar straightens his head back up and pats Hakuryuu on the shoulder. “Alright, let’s get this started.” _

_ Judar’s hand slides down from the shoulder, taking his time to go down to the chest right above where his heart should be even though Hakuryuu has told him plenty enough times that he just wants to get this done quick and simple. It’s far too late for the time of intricate rituals and formalities that used to surround pacts like these. All Hakuryuu needs is the power and the immunity that Judar can grant him. All Judar needs is the power and the eternity that Hakuryuu is willing to give. That’s all that matters. _

_ Hakuryuu’s about to nag the other once more when Judar’s hand clenches at the fabric of his shirt and deeper into the skin, making him jolt and gasp more than the simple motion should. Everything inside pulses together. Once, twice, but not a third time, instead suspending at the height of the second and for some reason, his fingers are shaking at their tips.  _

_ “It’s just as nice as I expected. You don’t disappoint.” Judar smiles downward as though he can see whatever substance he’s snatched under the physical walls of skin and flesh.  _

_ Hakuryuu would respond but he finds his breath trembling instead. _

_ So this is what a demon’s true touch feels like. This time he can actually remember it. _

_ “This might hurt a bit, but you can take it.” Hakuryuu doesn’t have much of a choice. Judar’s hand starts to move up again, nails curled up and dragging what’s probably Hakuryuu’s soul up, ripping every root tethered to every end of the body as it goes. He feels something snap and burn right under the skin of his feet, up the ankles, through the legs. Judar’s hand starts to drag to the right to get to the neck and his entire left side feels like it’s suddenly been abandoned and chucked into a dumpster fire.  _

_ It’s at the base of his throat where Hakuryuu starts to groan, or rather make some poor imitation of a groan because nothing’s coming out of his mouth right except this slow ascent of the mound. He can’t breathe. All the air is coming in and gets blocked right where Judar’s hand is, currently placed right in the center of his throat, a nice location to grip and choke. It Judar has any mind for revenge against him, now would be the perfect time. _

_ But that doesn’t seem to be the case. The hand still keeps moving up, at the same exact pace as it started with, climbing all the way up the throat. The nails start to dig under Hakuryuu’s chin now, and the internal fire starts to surround his face, much like water when slowly sinking backward. Bit by bit, then all at once.  _

_ Hakuryuu doesn’t even notice that Judar is leaning closer until he leans all the way in, lips pressing against lips in this awkward position where the demon’s hand is clawing up the rest of his chin and the mound is in Hakuryuu’s mouth, so wide that it forces open his mouth. There’s a slimy feeling and then a small clacking noise and just a second later, Judar pulls back with an orb of light between his teeth.  _

_ Judar spits it out into his hand and wipes it off with a towel conveniently hanging off of a hook in the entry hallway. “Nice.” _

_ Hakuryuu stares at him, and then at the orb. The small thing that made him feel like his entire body was being pushed out of himself like some sad tube of toothpaste. It’s glowing with bright white light but would jitter with dark pulses. Is that it? Is that all that a soul amounts to? What his soul amounts to? _

_ Judar seems to think it looks much better, with the way that he’s rotating the thing around and marveling at it. Hakuryuu should say something about it, react to it instead of just standing around like some dumb mannequin. But how in the world is he even supposed to react to this? Any anger or frustration he should be feeling right now isn’t here, not exactly. It feels outside of him, buzzing as small bugs swarming around his skin but not daring to go in.  _

_ “I never thought I’d ever hold an exorcist’s soul… imagine that.” Judar smiles at the orb, gazing at it one last time before bringing it to the red jewel at the center of his choker, letting the light seep right inside the gem. _

_ “...Stop ogling at it and just finish up the deal.” His voice lacks the conviction he usually holds, it’s more like he’s trying to keep up a performance of how he’s usually supposed to be but failing and not knowing what his next line should be.  _

_ “Oh, it’ll grow in through the rest of the day.” Judar’s rubbing circles on the gem with his thumb, as if ogling Hakuryuu’s soul earlier wasn’t enough. “People don’t usually ask for physical changes like that, but I think it shouldn’t be too painful?” _

It was. It was extremely painful. Someone with a lower pain tolerance would most definitely have passed out from it, but it was still so much that Hakuryuu could barely do anything but learning through some conversation and eating. 

There’s some rustling on the other side of the bed. Hakuryuu turns his head and sees that Judar’s closer now. He sighs and turns to the opposite side, closing his eyes again and hoping that the pressure on his left arm doesn’t suddenly reactivate any severe pain. 


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while to write, I got stuck in a bit of a funk after taking a weekend off to travel a bit, and now I need to get ready for a different trip and also moving out and there's just a lot going on. Hope this chapter reaches people's expectations though.

Hakuryuu squints his eyes open, sunlight beaming through the windows and disrupting the little sleep he got. It’s nice, actually being woken up by the call of the sun rather than a rumbling sense of anxiety that upsets his stomach and forces him to get up before his alarm. Speaking of which, why didn’t his alarm go off? Did it run out of battery? He never lets the thing go below forty percent. 

Except this isn’t the usual place he wakes up in. He turns his head to see that Judar is in fact still there, sleeping away, face completely relaxed. It’s almost hard to believe that this is the same person that would have a thrill beating up other demons and eating their flesh for power. From here, it’s much easier to believe that this sleeping face is owned by a person who just likes to try all types of sweets and follows his whims. 

Hakuryuu rubs his eyes awake. He can’t waste his time thinking about a lie. He shoves Judar, almost pushing him out of the bed.

Judar makes a mumbled noise. “Mmmngh, what.”

“Get up, the sun’s already out.”

“The sun’s barely up, gimme another hour or two…”

Hakuryuu shoves Judar off of the bed.

Judar yelps. “Fine! Fine, just. Give me a second."

“You have three seconds to get up from the ground.” Judar takes about four to properly stand up but it works well enough. Hakuryuu goes ahead to wash and get ready in the meantime. 

“We definitely could have slept in a bit longer.” Judar weaves himself in as soon as Hakuryuu’s done.

“Do you actually want to do anything about this or not?”

“As if she’s going to do anything in the morning, we’re demons, not birds.” Judar flails his hands to slap all the water onto Hakuryuu.

“Hey!” Hakuryuu turns the faucet on again just to splash the other with a whole palmful of water. “All the more reason to start now, unless you’re telling me you can’t do it.”

Judar scoffs, “Of course I can. Fuck, we can go right to her and ambush her right now, even.”

Hakuryuu lets out a breath of air that is supposed to sound something like a laugh, the way that someone reacts because their head tells them to do so while the inside feels hollow. That is what he is now, a hollow weapon. Which means there’s no point wasting his time on this banter. Luckily the nearest graveyard isn’t too far off from where they are staying, barely ten minutes away.

“It’s almost emptier in the morning here.” Judar kicks his feet up while walking along the grass.

“Have you been here before?”

“Yeah, there was some weird kid trying to smoke something that turned out to be oregano.” Judar leans back against one of the larger, older gravestones where the writing is starting to meld with the rest of the erosion. “He tasted all herb-y too, kinda gross.”

“Explain to me how these powers work.”

“Well, you’re a medium, you can see all the spirits still lurking here, right? Tons of weak ghosts that weren’t satisfied with ending their lives so abruptly.”

“Yeah.” It’s like a constant buzzing that Hakuryuu can feel from his feet, light but just present enough that when he kneels down to touch the grass he can distinguish the various spirits lurking near their coffins. “Is this the extent of the types of spirits I can control? You promised me more than this.”

“What you can control depends on how strong you are. So you better be able to do at least this much.”

“Deflecting the responsibility to me, is that it?” Hakuryuu’s black scaled hand reaches into the ground, going through the soil and feeling something deathly cold instead. “...There’s barely any spite in this one. If anything it just feels lost.” He glances up at the tombstone to look at the dates. It was barely 16 years old.

“Well, you can change that.” Judar mouth curls up into a grin, sharp canines flashing through. “Come on, try it out already. I wanna see what you can do, fuck the thing up.”

“Don’t get so excited over it.” Hakuryuu reaches his claw in deeper, grasping the frigid aerous substance, making it stop and solidify immediately. “Is there a certain type of procedure, some kind of spell that I should be using for this? I doubt the tools that I have would be helpful in this case.”

“Just use your intuition, it’s not that hard.” Judar tilts his head to probably get a better view, whatever he can see through his eyes. To any random person, they would look like two guys just staring at a patch of grass in the middle of a graveyard. “All those rituals and shit exist because you never had a real connection to true power before. Now you do, now you can make that spirit your bitch.”

That’s entirely useless. If anything there’s a good chance that Judar doesn’t know what he’s talking about because it’s a type of magic that he’s never used before. Hakuryuu tightens the grip he has on the spirit anyway, feeling the way the cold solid quivers and separates into small tendrils that try to grasp his fingers. He frowns and digs his nails in, sending vibrations down through the entirety of the spirit.

“Oh, now we’re getting somewhere, keep doing that.” Judar practically purred, braid whishing side to side.

“You’re enjoying this too much for someone who’s just watching.”

“Oh, I mean you could try this on me too if you’d like-”

“No.” Hakuryuu looks back down on the spirit that’s still frozen in place, not spiteful enough to even struggle. That’s the problem, there’s no power to a spirit if there’s no spite forcing them to stay attached even though the rest of the world’s natural forces tell them to leave, that’s the source of all their power. If the spirits of the graveyard are merely lingering, waiting for the occasional visits from their loved ones before they also join the dead, then Hakuryuu might as well make some use of them. 

Inserting spite and hatred turns out to be easy. All he has to do is feel it himself for it to spill over into the spirit, making it jolt and shake in response. The transfer of emotions is simple, so straightforward without the physical barrier of bodies to keep self separated from other. 

Judar jumps down from his gravestone seat to peer over at Hakuryuu’s work. “Ooooh it’s going all bloodthirsty and you didn’t even need it to fester alone for a century. Impressive. How are you doing it?”

“I’m just visualizing some things to rile it up.” Visions mainly from his personal life. The fire, the rebuilding of their entire family life while being left useless for all those years, losing Hakuyuu, and then imagining what it’d be like to beat the demon’s face in and finally kill her for ruining their lives. “It’s not that hard since spirits are actually quite impressionable.”

“All you gotta do is keep replaying some murders if that’s the case. Not bad.” Judar puts his hands in his pockets and stomps the ground just to shoot some dark energy into the spirit, speed up the process a little by aggravating it. “Just this one ghost by itself won’t be able to do jack shit, though.”

“I know.” They’ll probably still be lacking even if they charge up every single dead person in this graveyard. Maybe he can figure out some other ways to strengthen them while still keeping them under his control. Even then, there’s no way of knowing how many days it will take to make the necessary preparations at this rate. 

A screech rings from underground. Hakuryuu pulls the spirit up into the surface, whatever misty aura it was once before completely corrupted and convulsing with anger and torment. Disgusting. Judar licks his lips. 

“Not bad at all…” Judar waltzes closer, looking the experimental subject up and down more like a potential snack to buy than anything else. “What exactly are you going to do with this?”

“Let’s experiment with this one more before we try to scale to this entire graveyard.” Hakuryuu ignores the gleam in the demon’s eyes and starts clawing inside the spirit instead, thinking to himself that it’s in order to better understand how the spirit works and find ways to manipulate it.

 

* * *

It’s possible to augment a spirit’s strength to an extent. Unfortunately, that extent barely means much. If Hakuryuu had to estimate, his abilities only allow an increase of about maybe fifteen percent at most. Getting the ghosts of this graveyard to become spiteful towards life but also obedient to him only gets faster with each round, which proves promising. 

“You got into this really quickly for someone that was all against selling their soul a while ago.” Judar’s laying down, body splayed down three consecutive tombstones in a way that can’t possibly be comfortable. “Now even normal people won’t be able to trust you with all those angry ghosts following behind you.”

“Like they would trust me with an arm like this.” It’s dumb to even make such a remark since when did the opinions of normal people matter to Hakuryuu? The only possible issue is meeting anyone in his family before killing Arba. If it’s someone like Kouen, he definitely would not hesitate in trying to kill the two of them. 

Would his brother or sister act the same way?

...He’s not going to bother thinking about that, not when he still has five more rows of ghosts to pick up off the ground. 

“Hm?” There’s a vibrating noise and Judar takes out his phone from his pocket, answering whatever call he’s getting immediately. “Hey… Oh, it’s you. Yeah, I’m with Hakuryuu right now.”

Hakuryuu almost drops the carpenter soul he’s been corrupting. “What? Judar, who is that?”

“It’s the old hag.” Hakuryuu stares at him. “...Kougyoku. She said she’s alone.”

“As if, just hang up on her.”

“Hakuryuu!” Kougyoku yells so loud that both of them could hear it from the other side of the phone. “Hakuryuu what are you doing? Are you okay? Are you running away for real?”

“Yeah we’re eloping and there’s nothing you can do about it!” Hakuryuu drops the spirit he’s holding to grab the phone from Judar’s hands before he can say anything more, cutting off the call without a thought.

“Hey, I was gonna mess with her!” Judar lunges for the phone but Hakuryuu steps aside.

“This isn’t the time to be messing with anyone, Judar.” He might as well just break the phone since it’s not as though the demon has any other contacts, mat least any of importance. “The last thing we need is my family hunting us down.”

“Oh? They’ll just kill you like that?”

“...Of course they would, something like this is unforgivable after all.” And there’s no going back after a betrayal like this. 

“Would your brother kill you even if you manage to save him?”

Hakuryuu doesn’t let his expression falter. “...Maybe he would try.”

Judar laughs. “You exorcists are something else. It’s not like you’re doing anything that horrible, you’re just messing with the dead as you’ve always been. Except before it was all “honorable” and supposed to be good, and now all of a sudden you’re on the hitlist for your entire family. Feels like a drama.”

“Think what you want, but shut up and help me finish up the rest of this graveyard.”

“Heh, as you wish.”

 

* * *

“Doesn’t feel so private with all these ghosts loitering around.” Judar pouts after throwing himself back into bed, skies already comfortably in the dark.

“Why does that matter to you, it’s not as though the ghosts will do anything.” Hakuryuu’s gripping his guandao with his new arm, getting a feel for it and the odd imbalance that comes from having one arm astronomically stronger than the other. He’s not going to spar right here, luxury hotel room it may be, it’s still only a room for one bed and doesn’t have enough space for him to really do anything. 

“You used to get all fussy when I tried to stay in your place overnight and now you’re saying it’s fine if an entire graveyard sifts around our room?”

Our room sounds way too casual. “It’s only a temporary place for us to stay while we try to prepare, I wouldn’t call it a place to get comfortable at.”

Judar groans. “How did you even fall asleep last night with that stick up your ass?”

“Humans are actually supposed to sleep every night.” Hakuryuu reduces the guandao to its shortsword form. It is actually quite surprising how he was able to get any sleep, maybe the relative distance he’s gained from losing his soul consequentially improved his sleep quality. 

He spends a good amount of time just getting used to his new arm. Much better than the prosthetic he had to use before, given that he can actually feel with it, but the disproportionate difference in strength almost made him break the doorknob coming back here. Judar wastes his time watching from the bed, laying back all comfortable in the pillows. 

“Don’t you have anything to work on?”

“I thought you said you didn’t want me hunting down demons.” Judar adjusts himself in the blankets to make himself closer to a human-sized burrito. “Resting is charging up too.”

“Sometimes I question whether you actually want to deal with Arba or not.”

“I have way more reason than you ever could.” He says it so casually.

Hakuryuu places the short sword on the table. “...What is your history with her anyway?” He can surmise that they have some sort of extended history that must have gone sour, or maybe they were enemies to begin with. 

Judar’s relaxed expression doesn’t fade so much as slams into a stern frown. “What do you need to know?”

“I don’t  _ need _ to know,” Hakuryuu’s not sure why he’s asking this himself, “But I am curious. I told you about the fire and everything while before selling my soul to you.”

“Hm.” Judar looks at him for a moment, something unreadable in his eyes. “I mean. I guess I could tell you some things. Not everything, since there’s just way too much shit over the years.”

Considering that the demon is at least a couple thousand years old, that’s fair enough. “That’s fine. I want to know what your relation to Arba is.”

Judar struggles out of the blanket burrito he got himself into so he can sit up properly, but he’s still almost completely encased which makes it hard to look at him seriously. “Alright, where do I start off…”

“Whatever’s simplest.”

“Uh yeah. I guess you could say she’s kind of my mom then? The closest that a demon could be to a mom anyway, which is not at all. Demons can’t even make babies on their own so she had to have taken the sperm of some unlucky guy on Earth who thought he was getting a free fuck. Maybe a woman, she can probably make her own dick easy.”

“I don’t need a lesson on demon sex education.”

“Huh? Oh right. So yeah, for whatever reason Arba and her demon cult ring basically raised me from birth and it was obviously terrible growing up with them because. They’re all horrible fucks who just wanted me as their weapon.”

Hakuryuu sits down at the edge of the bed without really thinking about it. “And does that have to do with why you haven’t been out here since the middle ages?”

“Middle ages?”

“You mentioned you haven’t been out since the plague.”

“Is that what you call that time? Okay yeah, that. I escaped one time and hung out, not that much in Europe cause everyone was dying and filled with ugly boils, mostly in Arabia and Asia and just having some fun. Exploring, burning down a couple of villages, that kind of thing.” Judar looks out at the wall, almost like he’s actually reminiscing about those times. Hakuryuu can’t really see him as the introspective type, however. Maybe the other’s just trying to remember what happened next. “But one of Arba’s puppets had to find me and drag me back down, so I’ve been stuck in their boring ass palace and getting “training sessions” constantly until I had another chance to break out with the help of those demons that backstabbed us.”

“Ah, I see.” Not really though. Judar gave about the vaguest history he could give, skimming over all the parts that could have told Hakuryuu to sympathize with him. The look in the demon’s eyes tells him that he’s not going to get much more even if he tries to press. At least, not right now. 

“Yeah.” Judar sinks back down on the bed. “Arba’s a bitch. Can’t wait to beat her face in and watch her guts spill out so I can stuff it back in then rip them out again.”

“...She’s in my brother’s body right now, remember that.” 

“Fine, after we pull her slutty ass out of your brother, then I’ll rip her to shreds.”

Hakuryuu scoots closer in the bed and turns so he can actually rest his back on the headboard. “Yeah… We’ll tear her apart.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, it's me again after a longer than intended break. I had to move to a new city, start my first real job, and then move again from temporary housing to my real apartment so it's been a little hectic. Hopefully I can settle into a more regular writing schedule again because I really did miss working on this fic

Five hundred sixty-eight souls and counting. That’s the number of spirits Hakuryuu and Judar have been able to corrupt and coerce into their side. Judar has told him that this would barely do anything to Arba, though they would be nice to use if she brought any of her followers, of which there are apparently hundreds.

“There’s no way that she could have brought all of them here or even a significant chunk of them.” Hakuryuu releases his grip on an elderly spirit as it dissipates into a mist, unable to hold all of the energy that he was trying to channel into it. “There’s been more supernatural activity, but nowhere near the amount for a cataclysm.” 

“Yeah, I guess.” Judar blows the mist away so that it’s no longer between them. “This whole place would be burning in hellfire if she tried to bring  _ everyone _ up here. Could probably bring a couple of her oldest puppets though- wait, they’re all dead now!” He laughs at himself.

“You mean like Ithnan?”

“Eugh, I hate even hearing his name.” Judar sticks his tongue out, then prods the nearest ghost for it to steal some more peaches for him. Having them run errands is a complete waste of time, but it does prove the amount of obedience that has been drilled into the spirits along with the hatred used to fuel them. “He’s one of those old farts that’s been with Arba since day one. Also Falan and a bunch of others, but they’re all dead now. So all that’s left are all her brainless henchmen.”

“How strong are they, individually?”

“I can definitely take one down easily.” Judar sits down backwards on a chair, leaning forward on the back of the chair. “It’s just that they come in swarms, like ants.”

"Hm, I see." Hakuryuu beckons the spirits of an entire family, a row going back four generations. They line up from most recent to oldest deaths, perfect puppets when they don’t need to be enraged. “These can at least work for potential crowd control. Have you been working on all the types of magic I’ve listed earlier?”

“Of course,” Judar scoffs, “Who do you take me for? If anything you should be making another list of more stuff to learn or I’m just going to get bored.”

“The bags under your eyes say otherwise.”

“Demons don’t get eyebags.”

“If you’re struggling, just admit it. I’ll find my own way.”

“Fuck you,” Judar rests his hands on his hips. “I get why you put some of the items but why the hell do you need longer distance tracking magic for? I don’t need any of that to tell when Arba’s around. Fuck, you could probably feel her a mile away too.”

Hakuryuu drives his arm through several members of the spirit family, dark wisps splashing with something dark yellow and sulfuric. The ghosts don’t scream, they’ve learned to be obedient until he lets them loose on the enemy. “The tracking magic isn’t for Arba herself. But it’s obvious that these ghosts are weak. They lack conviction.” And pushing wrath can only seem to go so deep when there was never a good reason to hold a grudge in the first place. 

“What, gonna find an angrier ghost? Then you’re just getting into low-level demons and other little gremlins. At least spirits are easier to tame. Demons are bitches.”

Hakuryuu looks straight at Judar. “I know.”

“Hey-”

“We’re going to be tracking down any dead people that had a personal reason to hate Arba or any of her henchmen. We should be able to make those exponentially stronger than these random ghosts. But I have plans for these ones too.” Hakuryuu curls his claw-like fingers in the row of spirits, dragging the essence of one in through the others, piled one after another like layers of sediment.

“Hm, what kind of plans?” The gleam in Judar’s eyes hints that he’s already got a good idea what Hakuryuu’s going to do. Good. That means he can save some time explaining. 

Black nails claw into the spirits again and again, tearing them apart, mixing the torn bits together until indistinguishable from one another. The sulfuric stench spills everywhere in lament and Hakuryuu has to narrow his eyes, tears barely starting to sting at his waterline. He looks like he’s stuck his arm in a black and yellow fog, and any normal person who walks into this would think that the mess of spirits tinged his arm black and scaly instead of the other way around.

It burns when Hakuryuu tries to use his normal, closer to human, arm but it doesn’t matter. He gathers up all of the torn bits floating in the air with both hands to press it all together, compact into the closest one can shove a bunch of supernatural energy into a ball. 

“I’ve gotta say, this is the first time I’ve seen someone try to do it like that.” Judar leans in closer, probably too close to the snowball of spiteful gases. There are too many sharp teeth in his smile. “You really are something else.”

“There’s no point in flattery, I already sold my soul.”

“Then that means it’s not flattery.”

Hakuryuu forces out a breath of air that could have been the beginning of a laugh. He holds the sulfuric stench full of energy up to Judar. It crackles in pain. “Let’s see what we can make out of this. You’ve kept a couple of those innards you eat, correct?”

“What kind of weird monster are you trying to patch up here?” Judar asks but makes a beeline to the refrigerator anyway, taking out one tupperware after another, each full of rancid contents not worth describing.

“We need some for brute strength, but we’ll need others specialized for entrapment and preferably some that can absorb elements of magic that she specializes in.”

“She doesn’t really… specialize in anything.” Judar opens one of the containers and immediately closes it again, cringing and moving to open up all the windows instead. “Like. She basically can do everything when it comes to offense.”

“Is she the type to only go on the offensive then?”

“What? Nah, the crusty hag moves so slow half the time that I forget what she’s scheming most of the time.” Judar opens the tub of innards again but now right next to the wide-open windows.

“Close the blinds, we don’t want anyone potentially seeing this.” Hakuryuu frowns.

“If it’s anyone that matters, they’d be able to see even if we had a whole wall instead of a window there.” Judar lifts up the tupperware and Hakuryuu can’t help but crinkle his nose at the stench.

“...Fine.” Only because demon guts stink even when they’re refrigerated. Hakuryuu needs to take care that the actual food in the fridge didn’t get spoiled or cursed because of the exposure. “Anyway, you still haven’t properly answered me. What kind of magic does Arba specialize in?”

Judar presses his lips, watching Hakuryuu take the innards and start fusing it with the ghastly abomination he already made. Black claws make incisions along a line in the lower intestines where purple veins still pulse despite being separated from the body a day ago. “I mean. I guess possession? She’s done some weird shit with… passing on her lineage through human families.”

Hakuryuu’s clawed hand stops. “What do you mean.”

Judar scratches his head. “It’s been a really long time since she’s done this. Like I was barely an infant to demon standards. Anyway, she used to disappear for years at a time and possess some concubine. She fucked a lot of kings and emperors and basically a lot of royal bloodlines passed on some traits from her. Oh, big religious figures and the like too. Lots of important people.”

“And what did she gain from corrupting various bloodlines?”

“Beats me.” Judar sighs. “If she ever used it to do something big, I was never around to see it, I just know that tons of royalty have a bit of Arba’s blood running through them, and most clergy too.”

Hakuryuu sighs. “You have a way of raising questions and then never answering them.”

“You can’t blame me for not knowing what that bitch is doing all the time when I was basically under house arrest all the time!”

“Then stop talking about things you aren’t sure about.” Hakuryuu goes right back to making precise incisions in the innards and squeezing the amalgamation of spirits, drops of ooze falling right inside the cuts and making them pulse yellow and green. 

“You’re the one who started this whole mess.” Judar crosses his arms and sits down on the floor to watch Hakuryuu do his work. 

Hakuryuu presses right into one of the cuts near the periphery, clawed finger sinking in as whatever gaseous walls existed fade off, releasing control. Puffs of smoke release from the wounds but stop midway. Particles draw back together, making the puffs into solid tendrils of some sort. It’s hard to describe it as anything but something ugly, something that’s growing larger and larger. It makes him want to puke. 

Now they’re getting somewhere. 

“We might be able to do something soon after all.” says Hakuryuu. Judar moves to lie on the bed stomach down, then hugs a pillow to watch the spectacle like it’s some kind of movie for a sleepover rather than committing heinous crimes against life and death. It’s too much work to bother commenting on that eerie casualness Judar exudes. And besides, it’s not as though he’s disturbing any progress.

“You should be doing your part.” Hakuryuu ends up commenting anyway. Judar pouts but rolls out of bed as soon as he lied down. 

 

* * *

The crunch of bones is a sign to stop. So is all the blood that started from some place and managed to drip down his arms to pool on his palms. Breathing feels like voluntarily walking into a bear trap. But they can’t stop so soon, they only barely just started.

What’s worse is Hakuryuu can’t even get a proper look at the face of what took over his brother. The abomination only cares about looking at Judar’s limp body, arms all twisted in ways they shouldn’t be. Turns out he’s only so resilient with some protection spells on him, spells that Arba seemed to know too well, with how they came off with a couple of words and a grin. 

“You’ve gotten stronger since last time, how nice.” The figure that should be Hakuyuu squats down to ruffle Judar’s hair. “I was thinking that maybe keeping you inside all the time would make you weaker, so it’s rather convenient that you took the time to get yourself in shape.”

Hakuryuu tries to get up. His left leg just wants to twist the other way but he manages to sit up, even if it feels like he opened up the gates for more blood to pour out. “We’re not done with you yet.”

Hakuyuu, no, Arba looks at him with wide eyes and blinks. “What does this have to do with you anyway?” Her eyes trace down to the coal black arm. “Oh, you must be Judar’s new boytoy. I thought he had bad taste but it only looks like it’s gotten worse.”

“Don’t try to play dumb.” Hakuryuu grits his teeth. “You can’t pretend you forgot me when you took my brother away from me.” He stabs the floor with his guandao and pushes himself up with one part leg and four parts willpower. The other leg remains bent, shin bone starting to peek out.

“...Oh.” The confused look twists into a grin. “It was so brief and you were so young I completely forgot. But this all worked out in the end. Your brother here makes a much stronger vessel than anyone else in your family.”

Hakuryuu bends to dig his claws right into the flesh of his leg, near the broken leg and it takes everything to only hiss instead of scream. The bone vibrates and bends back to where it’s supposed to be, but with the same black scales covering the wound instead of skin. It’s fine though, if anything it looks like an extra layer on top of scars burnt in long ago, another level deeper but still functioning, still fighting. 

“Give my brother back so I can kill you already.” The words don’t sound nearly as threatening when they’re coming out hoarse through chapped, bleeding lips. 

What was something that could be considered a normal expression on his brother’s face melts into a pitch black grin, curled up all worm-like. Black drips down the sclera of the eyes too. “Sounds like someone wants to be a vessel replacement. But since Judar already took you, I could just melt your parts into something new.”

Everything in Hakuryuu’s body cries that it’s impossible. He raises his weapon up anyway. He can barely get it off the ground.

“Poor baby boy can’t pick up his stick-” Arba stops and looks down. Judar’s hand clenches at her ankle. “Oh, Judar, do you want to go back home?”

“Like hell I do.” The demon’s barely able to grumble out the words. Sparks start flying from his grip and up Arba’s leg but she makes it stop with one kick to the head.

“I taught you so much and this is how you treat me.” The look of disdain fits the actual Hakuyuu too well. “This wouldn’t have happened if you just stayed at home like a good child.”

Judar spits at Arba’s foot instead of bothering to think of a response. This gets him a couple more kicks. Hakuryuu uses this moment to try to conjure enough energy to summon another amalgamation of cursed spirits to pounce at Arba. 

“This again?” Arba stomps on Judar’s back and swings her sword right through the spirit. It might as well have been a piece of paper. “At least the other men you’ve been with knew how to use tactics, even if their muscles were all for show in the end. This is the weakest one you’ve picked yet, are you getting that desperate?”

“What the fuck do you know, old hag…” 

Arba bends down and lifts Judar’s head up by the hair. “I intended to stay up here for a while and let you do as you please until I finished, but maybe I should send you back anyway. I don’t need Ithnan or Falan to keep you secured, not if I cut off your limbs and keep them like that this time.” 

Judar takes this as an opportunity to spit right onto her face. She doesn’t even blink. “Why don’t you just kill me already then?”

Arba looks at him for a moment. “Why would a parent ever kill their child?” She smiles as if it’s obvious to both of them that she’s lying. Judar’s head falls to the ground with a thud and dark blood starts trickling down the soil. She pats his cheek one, two, three times. “I’ll come back for you when I need you, so be a good boy and stay quiet until then. If you don’t, I suppose I can make do with your guts.”

Trying to summon more ghosts to trap Arba down only proves to be a waste of energy. Hakuryuu stumbles over to Judar, blackened leg still too stiff for anything less than a major limp.

“...Can you get up?”

Judar just huffs in response.

“If you can get up, then get up. Unless you want to just bleed to death here.”

There’s a growl and a weak attempt to stand up, but Judar’s legs just slip down to the rock, skin grazing on the hard, rugged surface. 

Hakuryuu sighs and pulls Judar up by the arm even though it makes his head spin and the air on his lips feels like ice. There’s a groan from Judar’s side but the demon manages to get his legs on the ground. Looks like those twists can heal fast even though they look so frail. 

“We should go after her,” Judar growls.

“Trust me, I want to.” But Hakuryuu knows an obvious loss when he sees one. They start walking, one step at a time. “We need to restrategize. How long will it take you to heal enough to use tracking magic?”

“I don’t know. I need a nap.” Judar definitely looks like he needs much more than a nap but who knows, maybe his healing rate is just that high.

“Okay, you’re not going to fall asleep on the street.”

“Psh, of course not. I want to sleep in the largest, softest bed.” Judar continues to list off various luxuries he’d rather be pampered with while he heals, but Hakuryuu mostly tunes it out as they straggle one step at a time back home. Back to the base, that is.

The sun’s near setting once they can see the entrance door in sight, along with two heads of reddish-pink hair glowing from the warm light still left of the day.

Hakuryuu frowns. “What do you want.”

“Would it make you feel any better if I said I sneaked off on my own without any of the others knowing?” Kougyoku stuffs her hands inside her hoodie pocket, no doubt fumbling with her fingers. 

“No.” Hakuryuu and Judar try to keep walking. Unfortunately, Morgiana blocks the way and neither of them has half the energy to even try competing with her strength.

“You’re not going to get anywhere like that, the two of you can barely walk as is.” Morgiana crosses her arms and her biceps are clear to the eyes even without flexing. 

“Fuck off, furry freak.” Judar’s retort doesn’t sound like much when he’s slumping against Hakuryuu’s side. 

Kougyoku takes a breath and grabs Hakuryuu’s human hand. “Hakuryuu, please.” She looks up at him with those wide, pleading eyes. “I’m not going to tell anyone anything, just let me know what’s going on. What happened to you? Who did… this to you?” She gestures to all of the wounds apparent on his body. 

“I recommend you speak, but if you need that demon out of the way,” says Morgiana, who looks busy having a glaring contest with Judar. 

“I can grill you into a steak real easy with my one good hand.” Judar snarls.

The grip on Hakuryuu’s hand only gets tighter. “Hakuryuu, please… I’m worried about what the others might do, Hakuren’s only been getting worse. Everyone’s been getting into fights all the time, not just about how to get Hakuyuu back but also you. Let us help you somehow, we all want Hakuyuu back, why can’t we just work together?”

“...It’s far too late for that.” Hakuryuu shakes Kougyoku’s hand off. “Don’t bother doing anything stupid. Judar and I are the only ones who can fix this.”

Judar’s starting to slip so Hakuryuu pulls him up again and they take another step forward, right in front of Morgiana who still refuses to relent.

“Let us through.” Hakuryuu frowns.

“You can barely stand as is.” Morgiana looks actually ready to fight but she glances back at Kougyoku.

Kougyoku’s lip quivers. “...There’s no point. Let’s go back for now.”

Morgiana blinks. “What do you mean?” But Kougyoku’s tugging at the fanalis’ sleeve. 

“He’s not going to change his mind, not even if it kills him. You could say it runs on his side of the family.” Kougyoku takes a sigh. “...Let’s just go back, okay? We should check up on Hakuren.”

Morgiana looks at her for a moment, then a short glare at both Hakuryuu and Judar. “I hope you will reconsider your choice.” She turns and walks away with Kougyoku, neither of them looking back.

There’s no point in reconsidering when there’s nothing that can be changed.  


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look I am still alive

As helpful as the cursed arm is, Hakuryuu’s still upset that it takes him far longer to heal than Judar, who went from looking like a broken marionette to almost new again in a day.

"Fuck, I hate her and that face she makes when she thinks she's got it all. She could've just killed me right there but she didn't, does she think that I'm not even worth that? Of course she does, that cunt!" Judar's messing with the one arm that still looks very much broken and disconnected from any conscious movement. Hakuryuu can't be bothered to ask how Judar's able to do that without being in pain, or maybe the pain is negligible. He can't be bothered to ask most things anymore unless they seem relevant enough to the task at hand.

"We're still alive, which means we can try again later, once we have a better idea of what to do."

"Hah, that look on your face doesn't suit you at all."

Guess the attempts to hide the bitterness in his frown wasn't holding upright. His lips feel all crinkly trying to keep it in.

Hakuryuu groans. "Yeah, you're right." Throwing something at the wall sounds really great right now but he can't even do that.

Judar resumes cursing at Arba for one thing after another, with a list of heinous acts that keep sounding like it might end soon, only for the page to finish buffering and retrieve another batch of entries. Hakuryuu just stares out at the window, half-listening though he realizes there's nothing he can really say to all the atrocities besides an enraging "I'm sorry."

They don't need apologies. They need action. Results.

His own thoughts start to ruminate too. Of course, any sane man would have said that neither of them stood a chance if they saw how pitiful the battle went, but Hakuryuu can't help but think… maybe if he wasn't so caught off guard by Arba's appearance. By Hakuyuu's face as the monitor of their family's suffering. Maybe if he just had a better idea of what exactly they were going against besides blurry memories of a fire and the smell of burning flesh. 

“Stop thinking so much.” Judar flicks Hakuryuu’s forehead.

“Huh, what do you know?”

“It’s obvious on your face.” Judar frowns. “Stressing so much on thoughts like that is just gonna make the recovery take longer.”

“Oh, and you’re so great at keeping things zen?” Hakuryuu snaps.

“I might be pissed but at least I don’t get wrinkles stressing over details that don’t matter.” Judar rubs his finger against Hakuryuu’s forehead as if smoothing out creases that definitely do not exist yet. 

“If you’re so concerned about my health then maybe you should do something besides sit around and complain.” 

Judar frowns, but the curl on his lip lingers, actually thinking about what Hakuryuu suggested. “I’m no good at healing magic so unless you want a baby arm popping out of your ribs…”

“You don’t have to know healing magic to get me a glass of water.”

Judar blinks. Is there really anything surprising in that statement? The demon stares at him a little longer before getting up and exiting the room. Hakuryuu tries to sit up but the sharp stabbing sensation in his back tells him to lay right back down. But Judar comes back with a glass of water, placing it right on the nightstand, close enough for Hakuryuu to reach but maybe a bit too close to the edge. The complete silence with which the demon did that was awkward at best. Hakuryuu forgets to even say thanks as he reaches for the glass and lets the water touch chapped lips. It takes a moment to open up and actually drink it. The way Judar’s looking away doesn’t help.

It’s silent for the entire duration. The glass is finished 

"Thanks." Hakuryuu finally remembers to say.

Judar scoffs, "What are you saying thanks for, it's just water."

Hakuryuu shrugs.

 

* * *

Judar's attempts to help care for Hakuryuu as he recovers is awkward at best. It's tempting to just tell him to stop, but Hakuryuu has to at least acknowledge thay the demon is making an effort, as weird as it is for a demon to do anything resembling hospitality. It's clear that he's never had a human master under a trap contract, and he doesn't know how to make small talk that doesn't start with a complaint or an insult.

Hakuryuu would find it draining. Should. Maybe he's too tired to get annoyed by such things, maybe he's learned to become a little more patient.stop since clearly the other has no idea how to be hospitable. But he doesn’t. It’s no surprise that a demon doesn’t know much about how to care for a mortal being, and it’s even more obvious that Judar has never had a human master under a trap contract or mutual agreement.

“Have you always been alone?” Hakuryuu asks after he’s eaten as much of his meal that his body could stomach.

“What does that mean?” Judar narrows his eyes.

“I meant that as in… Did you ever had a human with you in a contract before?”

Judar picks up the tray with the half-eaten dishes and places it on the floor even though he could have just walked a couple of steps to place it on the table, or maybe put in the effort to walk to the kitchen and just put them in the sink. “Hm… Nah, I don’t think so.” He pauses for a second. “Nope. Never had anything like that.”

“How?”

“I just never did, I don’t get what’s so hard to understand about that.”

Hakuryuu’s brow furrows. “Yes but… you still have a formidable amount of power.” He doesn’t really like to give words like that since Judar looks like the type to puff up at praise, but it’s true. “I don’t see any reason why, throughout all those centuries, no one would have tried to make a deal with you or try to trap you into some contract.”

“I can’t be summoned all willy-nilly like other demons.” Judar sits on the edge of the bed and Hakuryuu’s nerves are still sensitive enough to feel the wave of movement across the bedsprings, sending aches down his back and legs. It’s not too bad, it’s better than when he had to reach for that awkward glass of water. “No one has ever been able to summon me properly, even the humans who knew about me. They’ll try and just end up getting a slew of other demons.” He laughs.

“Why is that so? Judar isn’t your real name, I suppose. But no one has ever been able to get your true name?”

“Can’t have someone catching my real name if I never got one.” Judar shrugs it off like it’s some kind of everyday thing to say. Hakuryuu examines every feature of his eyes and lips. There’s nothing that looks like tension there, nothing that looks like it’s trying to hold back a different truth. The casual still line on his lip says it’s the truth, one that Judar is completely comfortable in.

“That doesn’t make any sense. What do you mean, you don’t have a real name?”

“Uhh, it means I don’t have one like a demon or spirit or angel or whatever would have. Like that type that you can use for summoning.”

“But… but how?” This goes against everything in his studies, through his readings from all the different cultures he’s looked into. The power of a name for supernatural entities is a given. An absolute.

“Dunno. But it’s pretty useful, right?” Judar grins. “I can’t get chained in by contracts.”

“Then… shouldn’t any agreement with you be considered null then?” Hakuryuu’s human hand moves up to his chest, above the heart. “Even if it’s something that you initiated.  _ Because an entity without a name has no power _ .” He quotes directly from the first textbook he’s had to use as a child.

“What, don’t tell me you think that you might actually still have your soul?” Judar makes a noise between a cruel cackle and a hearty laugh. “You felt it. Your soul’s not in your anymore it’s right here,” he taps the red gem on his choker twice. “Nice and warm and twisting in its place because you’re confused and wrapped up with the idea that I don’t have a real name.”

“...Is that how it feels.” Hakuryuu’s hand slides back down to the blanket.

“Mm, yeah, more or less. I don’t care to wax poetic about how souls feel. But I sure feel it.” 

Hakuryuu bites his lip. He’s not sure if he wants to know the extent of what Judar can feel from this agreement they made. It was easier when they were too busy preparing for a fight and Hakuryuu could forget for just a moment that his soul is bound not just to hell, but to whatever depraved playpen Judar might have for humans he’s trapped.

“I… I see.”

Judar smirks. “I don’t get mind-reading powers from this or anything, stop worrying. Just some general moods. It’s pretty motivating to feel how dedicated you are while you were preparing all of those lost souls to become irredeemable war machines.”

“Of course you find things like that motivating.”

“Well, yeah! I like someone who’s not a coward. Who’s willing to go as far as possible to get what they want, even if they have to burn everything down to get it.”

Guess that does describe them, in a sense. “...Let’s see that you don’t end up being a hypocrite then.”

Judar blinks. “Huh, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you better be working your ass off since you’re basically recovered from your injuries. You need to improve the defenses of your magic, make sure that Arba isn’t able to hijack your spells like she did last time. There are books from Mongolian shamans that are particularly good on this subject, you might be able to find them and finish them by the end of tomorrow.”

“What?” Judar groans and Hakuryuu can’t help but smirk a little. “I was talking about people who’d be willing to destroy anything to get what they want, not read a dusty old tome!”

“You’re older than those shamans, I’m sure. And a person willing to kill anyone for a goal should find reading one book to be a breeze.”

There’s a spark of black lightning when Judar huffs. “Fine, tell me what the book is, I’ll have it done by evening.”

“Really now, it’s already 2 PM, aren’t you setting yourself up for failure?”

“Shut up and tell me the book already!”

 

* * *

On the fourth day, Hakuryuu's able to walk around again and thus ended the constant awkwardness that was Judar's poor attempt as a caregiver. At least it was amusing most of the time. It almost distracted them from the lingering aftertaste of defeat.

"What's the plan now?" Judar yawns, leaning against the table from where he's sitting.

"...We're going to need to restock." Hakuryuu peers through the window overlooking the crowds walking through the street at the peak of morning busy hour. "There's still a decent portion of those war spirits I made that can still be used. I thought about ways to make them stronger, but clearly we're going to need new ones too…"

"We're gonna run out of graveyards at this point, but fine by me, we can just get people who live in the underground then, no one can live in a place like that and not be angr-" Judar tilts his head. "Huh, what do you see out there?"

Did he make himself that obvious? "It's nothing." He stares down at the spot of red that remains constant in the flow of businessmen and schoolchildren heading off to their places. It's hard to tell from this height several stories off the ground, but if it's who Hakuryuu thinks it is, she'll have no problems looking up and seeing them. He closes the blinds.

Morgiana cares too much to directly interfere, she'll just be watching unless they pose a direct threat to any people. But that's fine, they only need to work with the dead.

“Doesn’t look like it’s nothing.”

“Let me rephrase then. It’s not important.”

“Whatever, I got your point.” Judar gets up and pushes the chair back towards the table with his foot. 

"Let's go Judar." Hakuryuu puts on his coat and gloves. "There's someo- something I need you to track. I hope you haven't gotten rusty with the skills I told you to learn."

Judar huffs. "That's ridiculous. Show me what you wanna find."

It turns out Judar hasn't gotten rusty at all. Either that or he's great at acting like he knows exactly where to go. Hakuryuu doesn't really follow so much as walk right besides the demon, each step sending an array of pins up his feet and legs, all the way up to where the hips pivot to walk.

"You look like you're waddling, what are you, pregnant?"

Hakuryuu slaps Judar on the arm. "Are you tracking the signal or not?"

"I told you I am for the third time! We're almost here anyway. It's around.. that way." Judar makes some vague hand gestures in the left direction.

"...Are you sure?"

"Well, yeah. Of course I am."

Hakuryuu looks over to the left and back at Judar. 

"C'mon, what are you waiting for?" Judar crosses his arms.

"Right... right. Let's keep going."

Part of Hakuryuu had hoped that they wouldn’t end up coming here. They grazed through almost all of the other graveyards that are closest to them, even broke into a medical school for the corpses that had been given in the name of medicine. There were also lost souls found in the gutters, shadows of murders where the panicked killer drags the cooling body underground to rot. Those weren’t enough, so they need more. They need angrier spirits, so of course they come here.

There are two people standing at this graveyard, in the section that he frequented the most.

“...Hakuryuu.” 

“It’s been a while, Ren-nii, nee-san.” Hakuryuu and Judar stop several feet away from them, and Hakuryuu’s eyes can’t help but to sink down to the fresh bouquet of flowers at Hakuren and Hakuei’s feet, in front of two gravestones. 

“Hakuryuu… what happened to you?” Hakuei’s hand plays with the buttons of her soft blue cardigan. “You’re… you’re…”

“It’s obvious what happened.” Hakuren bites his lip. There’s a sharp look in the older brother’s eyes that Hakuryuu hasn’t seen for years. “Don’t come a step closer. Not with that monster next to you.”

“And why should I listen to you?”

“Ryuu. I don’t want to start a fight.” says Hakuren but he’s got a sword on him that he could unsheath at any second. “Not with our mother and father right before us. Why would you even come here with… that thing on your side?”

“Looks like some old fart wants to get buried right here-” Judar takes a step forward but Hakuryuu blocks him with his arm.

“What Judar and I are here for has nothing to do with either of you.”

“No it clearly has something to do with us. What could you possibly be here for that would have nothing to do with us.”

“You don’t trust me, Ren-nii?”

"...No." Hakuren inhales sharply. “No, not with that… pitch black void where your soul once was. You gave that away to that demon so he can use it as an accessory?” Hakuren’s fists ball up, veins looking ready to pop out of his skin. “We thought we taught you better, Ryuu. I, I thought Yuu-nii taught you better."

He did, but Hakuyuu's not here anymore. "Stop talking about him like he's dead!” A dark fume starts rising from his left arm. “He’s trapped right now! Trapped by what’s basically the devil herself, don’t you dare talk about him like that!”

Hakuei tries to step forward too but Hakuren won’t let her. “Of course we know that, Hakuryuu…” Her voice wavers at the end. “We want him back… We want you back. Please, reconsider.”

“What is there that I can possibly reconsider. You already know what I’ve done. You already know there’s no going back.”

Hakuren looks away. “Yeah… yeah. I wanted to find you before you did anything stupid, but I didn’t expect you’d go this far. What did that demon even do to you?”

“Who, the one right next to me or the one that’s possessing Yuu-nii?”

“Ryuu. I’m not here for your sass.”

“And I’m not here for you. Let me have a word to our parents.”

“You think they’d want to see you? Like this? Just that demon’s presence might have them rolling in their graves.”

“He won’t be taking one more step from here. It’ll just be me,” Hakuryuu gives Judar a look and Judar actually decides to be immediately obedient for once and takes a step back, shoving his hands in his pockets. “And by me, I mean I would like to be alone.”

His two siblings stare at them, wide-eyed. Clearly they expected a different dynamic of them. Hakuren looks like he’s going to take out his sword anyway, but Hakuei places her hand on his, gingerly taking it away from the hilt.

“He still deserves to make a visit to our parents, Ren-nii…”

Hakuren takes a deep breath. “...Fine. Yeah, you’re right.” He turns and doesn’t even look back. “The dead are free to talk to the dead.”

Hakuryuu waits until both of them are out of sight before walking up to the graves. Judar’s still standing far away, kicking the grass and complaining a little but not nearly as much as Hakuryuu expected for the sudden command.

“So, are you going to do it?” Judar watches as Hakuryuu bows to the two gravestones.

“...Of course I am,” He tries to not look so solemn. It’s probably not working, but it’s not as though there’s anyone else that could see him now. “We’ve made up our mind long ago, didn’t we? And, well… it’s obvious that they’re the best choices we have here.”

Judar stares at Hakuryuu for a long time, then shrugs. “Can’t say I relate. Demons never really did parenting unless they just wanted to grow themselves a puppet.”

“But I’m no demon.”

“No. You’re too human to be a demon.” And what, too demonic to be human? Judar never continues from that sentence.

 

With nothing else holding him back, Hakuryuu kneels down in front of the gravestones, pulls off one glove, and dips his scaled hand into the soil.


	26. Chapter 26

"Even using your parents… That's pretty low for a human to go, isn't it. Pretty disgusting."

Hakuryuu doesn't look up from the cutting board, chopping up the beef in near perfect squares. It took him a while to figure out how to do this properly with this clawed hand of his. "Are you criticizing me? I don't even need to question you to know you've done worse."

Judar laughs and plops back first to the bed. "Of course not! It's admirable if anything. And besides, it's not like you killed your parents to try to get your brother, they already died years ago and probably want to get a good first or two on Arba anyway. You're liberating them."

"Liberating," now it's Hakuryuu's turn to laugh. "Only you would call it something like that."

"Yeah? Doesn't change the fact that I'm right."

"If that's what you want to believe."

Judar rolls over and hugs a pillow under his chest. "Did you want to sell your soul to someone who didn't believe in you? I could have referred you to so many others who'd kill to own an exorcist and medium's soul."

"Would they have been as strong as you?"

"Hah! Not at all!"

"Then it doesn't matter, does it?"

It's hard to tell if Judar cackled or giggled at that, “Guess it doesn’t.”

Hakuryuu throws the beef cubes into the stew. It’s not the nicest looking stew he’s ever made, and he’s using a lot of substitute ingredient but it’s not as though Judar will eat any human food that’s not sweet. Judar still gets up when the meal is ready though, there’s still a couple of peaches leftover in the fridge. They’re not the freshest, but they’re still sweet and that’s what matters. Hakuryuu watches as the other bends down to pick one out from the bottom of the fridge and then suddenly slumps against the demon’s back as he’s getting up.

“Huh?” Judar looks over. Hakuryuu’s hand is on his shoulder, gripping lightly.

“...Sorry, I got dizzy all of a sudden,” says Hakuryuu. Plain and monotone.

Judar blinks and tries to stand up straight without accidentally pushing Hakuryuu off of him. “Oh.” Hakuryuu still keeps the half grip on him as the other pulls out a chair.

“Thanks.”

Judar ends up getting the bowls and silverware on the table, though Hakuryuu still uses the ladle to pour himself the stew.

“Don’t mind me. You should be out hunting for minor demons.” Hakuryuu sips the soup before trying any of the meat or vegetables. “I have reading to catch up on if I want to figure out the best way to mutate these souls properly.”

“Yeah I know what to do, but you’re not going to just use those ghosts already? Can they even stay here for that long without getting all weak?” Judar prods the ceramic bottle that’s a little too close to the pot of stew, fingers avoiding the paper tags used to seal everything they harvested.

“They’ll be fine. I want to get a more thorough idea of what I can do, more efficient ways of improving them. And you should be out right now. You’ve recovered but you still need to get stronger.”

“I already said I know, just let me eat this first.”

Judar does end up leaving right after eating, and Hakuryuu waits until he can hear the muted ding of the elevator down the hall outside of their room before he finishes up the rest of his meal quickly and walks over to the nightstand. He opens the drawer, pulls out the book at the bottom of the stack, too small to be noticeable unless someone goes through the other, wider books, and opens to the 27th page where there’s a folded sheet of paper with Hakuryuu’s name written in Chinese on the front. He takes a seat at the bed and opens the paper up, careful not to make any noise even though there’s no one but himself now.

He did mark the first point as necessary. Of course he did. He checked over where precisely to do it about thirteen times before hiding the sheet of paper away. He reads over the beginning anyway, even though it’s just an introduction.

_ “Although I do not approve of your contract with a demon, Lillith is the priority so I am willing to help you just for this. There’s a spell powerful enough to handle her, it was created by Sumerian priests before all tablet copies disappeared from floods and abnormal fires made by Lillith herself. Even though people have forgotten it, the Fanalis remembered and made sure to pass it down by word of mouth. Kougyoku is writing this down for me if you’re ever able to use it.  _

_ No individual has been strong enough to use this back in Sumerian times. If you cannot use it and are unwilling to go back to your family to potentially have enough power to cast this spell, then make sure to burn this paper so Lillith cannot get a hold of it.” _

It was smart of Morgiana to slip this into his pocket on their way back from the graveyard. A note of paper that initially looks like a genuine gift of help but turns out to be another way to pressure Hakuryuu into returning to his family. Except those girls didn’t realize that Hakuren already sees him as dead, and even if Hakuryuu could somehow find it in him to swallow his pride and come home again, the door will just be slammed on his face.

As he goes through the details of the spell again, checking each calculation with his phone as he does, jotting down the closest conversions for Sumerian units of measurement to modern standardized units that he can get, he pretends not to look at the constantly increasing subtotal of energy that’s required to pull the spell off. Although incredibly simple at its core, imprinting a code on someone’s energy signature so that it can never pass through the membrane between Hell and Earth, pulling such a task off, and on such a powerful demon too, is impossible without an immense amount of power. And as the previous battle showed, the arm he gained from the contract, albeit useful, isn’t even strong enough for the first phase of the spell.

Did Kougyoku and Morgiana give him this just for him to torment himself over it? He highly doubts that even with everyone in his family combined, they’d be able to get enough power. His cousins are less adept with magic in the first place as non-mediums can only become so strong. They’re just messing with him. And yet…

Hakuryuu folds the sheet of paper and puts it back in the precise place in the book, pushing it back into the nightstand drawer. It’s worthless. He needs to find his own way. Bringing his attention away from the spell and to the spirits is hard though, especially when he’s not actually trying to mutate them and is just reading about the theory and ways to reduce the energy necessary to corrupt the souls.    


Spirits have much more disposable energy when they aren’t tethered to bodies.

He goes back to the sheet of paper again (though he’s practically memorized it by this point) and starts comparing the notes. Transferring external energy to the caster is one of the foundations of magic, something he remembers getting beginner lessons from when his mother was still alive. But how many spirits will that require? Will he be able to get enough? Transfer is never 100% efficient. He looks over at the total amount of energy required before folding up the sheet once more, the bent lines getting loose and fibrous from so much movement.

Hakuryuu spends the rest of the evening focused on the spirits and actually working on improving them like he said he would. By the time Judar returns, he has already started fusing a couple of spirits together.

“Oh, you’re back already.” Hakuryuu doesn’t look up so he can stay focused on melding two spirit masses together.

“What do you mean, already? I was out like the entire day!”

Hakuryuu looks up at the clock. “...It looks like you have. Did you make much progress?”

“There’s only more and more demons out there so I guess that’s both good and bad.” Judar walks over to look more closely at the spectacle. Hakuryuu tries not to look fazed by the scent of rotting flesh that lingers from the demon’s recent hunt but has to bite the inside of his lip. “I really feel ready to fight now.”

He ends up pushing Judar back by pressing his hand on the demon’s forehead.

“Hey!” Judar frowns.

“Take a shower first, you’re gross right now.” Luckily, Judar’s a vain demon so he doesn’t even protest, just sniffs his braid, cringes, and makes a beeline for the bathroom. The sound of running water starts as fast as he left.

Hakuryuu’s finished with fusing all of the spirits together by the time Judar’s done showering, putting on his bathrobe, and massaging his hair with argan oil. His human hand hadn’t touched any of the fusing and other dark magic used on the graveyard ghosts, so he reaches out and brushes some of the long black hair with his fingers. It’s not often that he gets to see the other’s hair hang down undone, wet as it may be.

“Like what you’re feeling?” Of course he has to turn it into a taunt.

“You take a lot of care into your appearance.”

“Obviously. If I can make myself look good, why wouldn’t I make sure I do?”

“If only you took that mentality on other things you could be doing. You only finished one book that I recommended.”

“Huh. I thought that was the only one.”

“There’s a whole series, like an encyclopedia of sorts, detailing more uses of magic. Didn’t it come to your head that there might be something missing when the book stopped at the letter ‘E’?”

“I thought that was the only part that was necessary!” Judar pouts, using his fingers to make twirling motions and extracting the water out of his hair to dry it almost instantly. What’s left is perfectly soft hair, something that a writer could describe as angelic if it weren’t for the irony. “You should’ve been specific.”

“I am now.”

“Saying read everything isn’t specific!”

“It is when any given entry could become useful down the line.”

Judar groans but stays put as Hakuryuu keeps brushing. “...You know, brushing with fingers is really bad for hair.”

“You know how to fix it with magic though, right?” It’s a randomly thrown assumption.

“Yeah.” But it looks like it hit right on the bulls-eye.

Judar lets Hakuryuu keep going for a couple of more minutes before he gets too fed up about keeping all that hair down and not braided. Hakuryuu finally lets go and watches as Judar uses magic once again to fix his hair in the same style that he always wears.

“Didn’t know you cared about my hair that much.” Judar points out.

“My eyes just needed a break from looking at books and gases.”

“If that’s what you say.” Judar lays stomach down on the bed and watches for the rest of the night as Hakuryuu tries one experiment after another with the spirits.

 

* * *

“Hakuryuu! Hakuryuu!”

“What is it?”

“Look!” Judar walks over to the other, open book in hand and his finger pointing at a certain passage. “This might be the kind of thing we need. I didn’t know humans had nullification magic that was actually any good, but this might actually be strong enough to work on Arba.”

Hakuryuu looks over at the page describing the magic and the basic fundamentals for starting on this field of study. “Hm. Do you think you can learn that in a day?” It’s an absurd request, it looks like the type of magic that would take two weeks for the average exorcist to start getting proficient in, but Judar isn’t an exorcist.

“Hah, of course I can, what do you take me for?”

“A slacker.” A genius at magic when he actually sits down and focuses.

“Fuck you.” Judar frowns but the words came out soft. Hakuryuu reaches out and pokes the demon’s chest, right above where the heart would be (if Judar even has one, one can never be quite sure with the supernatural.)

“Make sure you commit the spells to heart.” Hakuryuu taps three times. “Repeat them as many times as necessary, you won’t be able to think about the details mid-fight.”

“...Yeah. Yeah.”

Hakuryuu smiles and pulls his hand back. There might have been a heartbeat in there somewhere, one active and fluttering and alive. Or he could just be imagining it. That’s more likely than anything else. Regardless, Judar’s discovery makes his shoulders feel just a little bit lighter with the slight hope that they won’t have to do anything too drastic in order to defeat Arba. But if worse comes to worst, Hakuryuu will still have to be ready to do whatever it takes. He tells himself he’s ready, steeled enough to commit to anything in order to get the job done, to bring his brother back. It’s still hard to swallow when he thinks about some of the things he might need to do in order to accomplish that, though. He needs to get stronger, mentally. It’s okay, he tells himself, Judar admires that kind of quality no matter what kind of goal a man is trying to accomplish. Right?

Usually, this would be the part of the rumination when Judar would interrupt and tease Hakuryuu, ask if something’s wrong. Judar still looks preoccupied, though. Perhaps the motion was too strong, too out of character, suspicious and-

“Hey Hakuryuu, are you a virgin?”

“...What.”

“That look on your face, only a virgin would be like that after a little prod like that. Or maybe you just never did it with a guy and you’re starting to question yourself-”

“That has nothing to do with anything!” Hakuryuu sputters. “And besides, it’s not as though you were acting all smooth. If anything, you were the one acting like some blushing virgin!”

Judar gasps. “Me? Demons don’t even bother with virginity and that shit since so many don’t care what or how they fuck. I’ve always gotten any man I’ve wanted, fucking virgin.”

“Why are you even bringing up sex all of a sudden anyway?” Hakuryuu sneers. “Shouldn’t you be studying this nullification magic that you found?”

“Not my fault you had a face that looked like it wanted something but had no idea how to ask for it.” Judar huffs and slams the book closed with one hand and shoves the other in his pocket. “Fine, keep being a clam then. I fuck and I can still do better at learning this type of shit than you.”

“That- I don’t understand how you linked those two together.”

“You humans like to think that keeping your dick in a chastity belt all your life helps with holy magic and all that shit, right? It’s such bullshit.”

“...My family lessons had none of that because this isn’t ancient China anymore, plus there are many cultures that aren’t like that, for your information.”

“Whatever,” Judar waves it off and opens the door in aa badly faked calm. “It’s too stuffy here, I’m gonna learn this elsewhere. I’ll come back when I’m done.” And out he goes.

Hakuryuu stares at the door and takes a deep breath. Maybe he should worry bout Judar for other reasons. Shaking the thought out of his head, Hakuryuu goes back to the spirits, or the one amalgamation that he couldn’t get himself to name or refer to other than just “a spirit.” As if they’re all anonymous energies, nothing linked to himself personally.

If Judar’s able to successfully learn the nullification magic to a proficient degree by today, and he can make the proper adjustments to his spirit slave within that same time frame, then they can prepare other potential defenses and wards tomorrow and strike once more the following day. This time, they’ll be able to make it. This time, they’ll be able to tear Arba’s cursed existence out of Hakuyuu and chuck it back to where it belongs.

He can’t wait to watch her scream and claw at the ground as she’s dragged back into Hell. He’ll have to make sure her agonized face is imprinted on his memory.


	27. Chapter 27

This is exactly what he wanted. This is exactly what he didn’t want. Hakuryuu finds himself loathing every step he takes, and yet he keeps walking faster until Judar starts complaining that they’re practically running now and Hakuryuu has to tone it down a bit.

“I just want to… get this over with.” Hakuryuu isn’t sure how else to say it. Not that it’s entirely truthful, he has no idea whether he wants this to end or for it to never come to be. “Possibly with minimal injury this time.”

Judar sneers. “What’s with you sounding like a coward all of a sudden? Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts. How the fuck are you going to get the revenge you want, then?”

“Second thoughts are out of the question.” 

“Exactly. Then act like it.”

“You don’t need to tell me that.” Hakuryuu gently shoves Judar’s arm. It almost brings his mood back to normal, though by normal he really means back to that first phase when they worked and lived together where they actually thought they could overpower Arba with sheer strength. He wishes he could go back in with that same amount of naivete.

Streetlights are starting to light up as they twist and turn through the roads, cutting through the alleys to the whims of Judar’s tracking senses.

“Judar. Wait.” Hakuryuu grabs Judar by the wrist, yanking him back into the shadows of the dank alleyway.

“Hm, what’s up? Are you really having second thoughts this time? You already gave your soul to me, you can’t just back out like th-”

Hakuryuu slams Judar against the wall and presses their lips together. For how many seconds, he has no idea. But when he pulls back and opens his eyes, he thinks he’s going to be trapped looking at Judar’s face for much longer.

“Wh-what’s been with you…?” Judar’s voice comes out breathless.

Don’t look too hard. “You better get through this battle in one piece, understand? It’s an order.” He’s looking way too hard. There’s no way he’s going to not get this image stuck in his head now.

Judar takes a moment but eventually nods. “Understood.” And then he pulls Hakuryuu back by grasping his hair.

This is going too far, and Judar’s lips are unfolding, inviting him in. Hakuryuu opens up without thinking, tongue slipping through like it’s been held back for far too long, though who knows when he started holding back when there was any desire that exists that had to be resisted. He thought when someone sells their soul, the only desire left in the hollow vessel of their body was the wish that made them go to such extents in the first place. But that’s enough about him. He owes Judar this much, so he’ll keep going along as Judar keeps pulling him closer, closer.

Judar must not need to actually breathe, because he keeps the same vigor in the kiss without any gasps, hot exhales through the nostrils, or breaking out for just a moment to catch his breath. The nails on Hakuryuu’s hair dig into his scalp, but then they’re slowly sinking down, dragging red lines down the neck and around the collarbone, and this shouldn’t make his entire upper body jolt but it does and the nails soften their mark as they lower down to the chest-

Hakuryuu breaks off suddenly with a gasp, pushing Judar’s hands away and effectively pinning the other on the dirty brick wall.

“I…” He has to take a moment to breathe, to process what just happened. It was just supposed to be a light kiss, just a short peck, a little gift in case things don’t go as bad as he expects. Instead, it melted into a makeout session that felt more like two lovers trying to touch each other for the last time before the gunfire gets them too.

“...Not bad for a virgin, hah,” the laugh isn’t entirely convincing when Judar’s cheeks are all flushed like that. “You should’ve, we should’ve done this sooner.”

“We can just…” Hakuryuu’s still got his hands on Judar’s wrists. He grips them tighter. “We can just continue this after we defeat Arba, right?” 

Judar’s smile never looked so soft. “Yeah.”

Hakuryuu lets his grip drop and they both just stand there for a moment. He presses his lips together when he’s walking in front of Judar and his face is out of sight, then he swallows, hoping the feeling can just pass by like that. It doesn’t.

Judar ends up walking ahead again but no words pass between them besides whatever’s necessary to tell what direction they have to go to find Arba. Hakuryuu finds himself chewing the inside of his lip. Maybe they should go back, try to find more spirits and demons, make sure there’s enough energy for sure, rather than potentially risking everything with the position they’re in right now. But Hakuyuu’s still trapped, each day dragging on like years. Hakuryuu glances up at Judar, the way the other seems to be walking with a new determination, the way his braid swishes with the energy in each step. 

Is Hakuryuu even allowed to pray for their success? After what they’ve done? Before what they’re about to do?

The doubt stops in its tracks as quickly as the air gets heavier. The level of demonic energy pulsing around drags the entire atmosphere down.

“Eugh, it reeks of that bitch,” Is Judar’s real first statement after what transpired in that one alleyway. “Makes me wanna puke every time I get this close.”

“Don’t lose your focus.” How hypocritical of Hakuryuu to say that. 

“I know, I know.”

The streetlights flicker and snap at the neck, letting out a splatter of electrical sparks as the light fades away from their bulbs and they curl into distorted shapes. Not only is Arba just around the corner, but it also seems she’s getting ready to use some powerful magic, probably summoning all of her minions, if Judar is correct in his intuition. If that’s the case, then this really is their last chance, not only to get Hakuyuu back but to prevent what could be an unstoppable cataclysm. It doesn’t matter if they’re ready or not if they have to sacrifice everything to satiate that clawing rage inside.

If Hakuryuu needs to use dirty tactics, so be it. His quivering fist betrays him, but so be it. His willpower is the one thing he has above others, the least he can do is force himself through his own self-doubt.

They walk towards the dark fog that stands tall over them like a tower made of thunderclouds. It smells of impending thunderstorms too, that wet yet volatile tension in the air. But as menacing as the sight looks, the barrier the fog makes is thin, and the two of them are able to pass through it in one step. 

“She’s making a base off of a funeral home?” Hakuryuu can recognize it as one of the places that they went in order to find more spirits and potentially some cursed items, and now it appears to be at the center of whatever ritual Arba may be preparing. “How fitting.”

“Won’t have to waste time with a burial or anything.”

“Of course not, we’re getting my brother back, not killing him with her. Understood?” Hakuryuu presses his hand against the dark wooden door.

“Understood.” They push it open together.

Hakuyuu, no, Arba stands there at the center of the entrance, donned in fully white traditional clothing, like a ghost or a man in mourning.

“Back already, I see,” That smile looks too soft on what should be his brother’s face. “You should be careful. One of these times I might actually kill both of you.”

“Better kill me right now then, cause you won’t get another chance.” Words start to crawl up Judar’s arms, inky and red with the slightest glow. Arba laughs at the sight, either completely aware of what Judar’s going to do or doesn’t care and immediately dismisses it as a parlor trick. 

_ “She hasn’t stayed out on Earth for longer than I have, so she probably doesn’t recognize most human magic made in the last millennia.” _ Hakuryuu remembers Judar saying. Let’s hope it applies to this.

The ground starts to vibrate with parts of the dirt combining and melting together into puddles. The puddles shiver in place and start to spike up on their own accord, and Judar has to pull Hakuryuu up by the hand so they both hover at a safe height in the air. 

“Wow, looks like you can still fly!” Arba smiles in a way that’s anything but genuine. “I was afraid I might have broken your wishbone then, but I had to make sure you wouldn’t go off and do anything stupid again, like coming back to interrupt any important work.”

“Just shut up and die already!”

“...Guess I need to bring you back home after all. And get rid of that pest while I’m at it too.” She looks at Hakuryuu right in the eyes.

Hakuryuu doesn’t grace that with a response and just pulls a vial out from his belt, popping the cork off for the spirit amalgamation to erupt from its overly compact vessel, encircling not just the two of them but Arba too. Judar raises his free hand and hundreds of fully teethed mouths open up to giggle, exuding a purple gas that sinks down with a weight much heavier than air. On the snap of his fingers, sparks fly down from his arm and travels down the mass of the amalgamation, exponentially growing in size as it gets amplified by the gases, practically exploding with energy in front of the sole victim standing on the floor. A force field wraps the two of them just in time to shield from any periphery electricity. 

The lightning gets directed into a single point where Arba catches it with her hand and reflects it back at them, only making it stronger than before with her own force.  One of the words floating up Judar’s arm starts glowing as a result.

The lightning dissipates, not even the slightest spark remaining. 

Arba blinks, actually looking somewhat surprised. “...What’s this?”

“You haven’t been out in way too long if you can’t even recognize that.” Judar grins even though the magic was completely new to him just two days ago.

“You can nullify lightning entirely now, big news.” Arba scoffs, “But how versatile is that magic? Can you block this?” A wave of pure force slams throws the two of them farther up, but stops before they hit and break the ceiling. Two words are now glowing on Judar’s arm. Judar told Hakuryuu that force was the strongest form of magic that Arba uses in combat, and it certainly felt that way on the last time they fought. If that wave hit them like Arba intended, Hakuryuu’s ribs would have been easily shattered by them. 

He’s only got so many nullifications available though. 

Lightning. Force. Meta magic that works by manipulating the magical energy and spells that could be made by foe or ally. Augmentation of natural energies too, such as strength or speed. 

But it takes so much for Judar to be able to nullify even one type of magic from this monster of a demon. 

“What’s wrong, Judar? You look a little tired.” Arba smiles.

Judar grits his teeth but it just makes him look more wiped, haggled breaths squeezing through fangs and freezing mid-air. “You can shove that attitude up your cunt, I'm sick of your fake shit!"

“It’s because you’re always two steps behind,” Her fake friendly tone comes to a complete stop, and for a second she almost sounds just like the regular Hakuyuu. “I don’t even need half of my magic to kill you and that patched up toy of yours.” With that she draws out her sword and lunges right at Hakuryuu.

Easy enough, Hakuryuu thought until he tries to block the hit and finds himself being thrown into the wall by the impact. The spirits he’s using to protect his guandao hiss. That strike wasn’t even augmented by magic, there’s nothing stirring in the air aside from the aftermath tremors of previous spells and nullifications. This is just pure, raw strength, so deep in its origins that it might just be stronger than the Fanalis.

Judar’s arm looks like the veins are about to burst before he could possibly nullify anything else. When Arba brings her fingers up to call forth the ashes of the dead into something like a sandstorm, it’s not lightning that sparks from Judar’s hands but blood. The demon barely gets a chance to call up a barrier instead of a counterattack to guard Hakuryuu from the gale of ashes.

“What are you doing, just attack her!” Hakuryuu yells, using the guandao to pick himself up, but he doesn’t even get to have any eye contact because Arba’s going right for him again with another lunge. He slides out of the way but the blade moves faster, pointed straight at the heart and Hakuryuu has to slide further, using his weapon to push the blade to the opposite direction.

“I will, what do you think I’m doing?” Icicle spears start to rain from the sky but they’re clearly not as strong as they could be, not from what Hakuryuu has seen Judar practice before. They sizzle and melt in contact with Arba’s barrier.

“Clearly not enough.” Hakuryuu snaps but it’s hard to say much else with Arba’s demented face right up against his as they fight.

“You humans have gotten so  _ lazy _ over the years, can you even dodge this?” The blade makes a quick turnaround and slashes Hakuryuu’s calf. “How about this?” She makes another cut higher up the thigh, then on the other thigh. None of them are at critical points, no, she wants him to try to keep struggling, to dance to whatever tune she’s making.

Away from the crux of the fight, Judar casts some kind of spell, attaching more of the spirits onto Hakuryuu’s weapon even though he’s sure that they planned to use them in a different way, but the fight isn’t going according to plan at all so the demon must have just thrown that all out of the window. But the augmentation gives Hakuryuu enough speed for him to cut a deep slash right on Arba’s chest.

She stops for a second, looking down at the white shirt staining red. She laughs.

“What kind of hex did you think you could pull on me? Do you think you could do anything to me? You’re a cursed mortal who doesn’t even own his own soul.” 

“Hurry up and die already.” As if on cue, the wound on Arba’s chest started to gurgle and sputter, and the demon actually looks shocked. Hakuryuu bites his lip. Those lost, warped souls are now inside the vessel of what they’ve grown to hate the most. If there’s something that could hijack them from inside, it would be them. Arba’s left eye starts to twitch but she attack again anyway, speed the same as before but blocking the sheer force of the attack is a little more manageable now, if one could call the force of a truck more manageable than a hurricane. 

Blood’s splattering off from her chest to his, almost black in hue and bubbling on contact. 

“You could harvest this entire city against me and it wouldn’t be enough to stop me.” Arba smiles through gritted teeth.

“Don’t think I wouldn’t do it, I’ll kill you if that’s the last thing I do!” Hakuryuu tries to force his way out of the blocking position but it slips, and Arba uses the opportunity to slide the blade under and stab him right through the abdomen. 

Funny. It doesn’t hurt quite the same as that time he fought Ithnan. Maybe it’s because there’s not much there besides guts. His body slumps to the ground nonetheless. He looks up from the ground, there’s globs of congested blood falling out in clumps at a time, kept together by bits of the amalgamations he worked so long to make. One of them whines in his mother’s voice, gargled and nondescript without words to cling to. 

He wants to get up. His inhuman arm can move but the rest of his human, scarred body refuses. Arba kicks some dirt in his face and turns around, since she apparently can’t be bothered to just finish him off quickly. 

“Judar…” Hakuryuu coughs and reaches his black hand out. “Judar, lend me your power.”

Judar doesn’t even hesitate to fly over. God, how he hates that so.

“What do you need? You know I can’t heal for shit.” Judar grips his hand so hard he would feel it cutting off his circulation if there was any on this limb.

Hakuryuu takes a deep breath and digs his claws into Judar’s hand as he starts muttering the spell that Morgiana wrote down on that cursed note. He lets go as soon as he’s done, shrinking his arm back. “I’m sorry.”

Judar blinks. “Huh, what do you mean?” He only looks more confused when a glow starts from the claw marks and starts spreading through the rest of his hand and then up the arm. “Wait, Hakuryuu, what spell is this?” 

Hakuryuu only looks at Arba, whose face contorted with rage, “You-! How did you- I got rid of all records of that millennia ago!”

He can’t grace that outrage with any smart retort, not with Judar’s completely baffled expression, body now completely aglow. “Hakuryuu?” Judar sounds more like a lost cat than the great demon he’s supposed to be.

Arba laughs in that way people do when there’s nothing else you can do. “Can’t you see, Judar? He’s throwing you out to the dogs.” Cuneiform starts carving into the skin of both those demons and Judar starts getting pulled closer to Arba by some unknown force.

“Wh-what? No way,” Judar looks down to see the same cuneiform appear on his own arms, writing above the nullification spells he’d worked so hard to learn, “You just need some power, right? I can turn off the nullifications, then it’ll be enough, right?”

Hakuryuu can’t even work up the effort to lie to him. It’d be so easy, and yet. “...I didn’t have any other choice.”

Judar’s mouth gapes. The corner of his lip trembles and Hakuryuu witnesses human teeth morph into disjoint fangs for the first time. “You- you what? I gave you so much and you’re just going to- to toss me aside like this?”

Hakuryuu doesn’t flinch when Judar lunges forth, but his mouth does clamp shut upon seeing skin melt away into something hard and dark, what was once Judar’s mouth gaping open to unveil the true head of the demon, splitting out from the human disguise Hakuryuu’s gotten so used to.

“ **Come here so I can tear you apart!”** Judar’s voice sank two octaves deeper with a bestial growl that has no place on Earth, “ **I’ll rip your soul into shreds and feed it to the lowest sinners in Hell-** ”

Hakuryuu doesn’t even register the rest of what’s being said. All insults and threats that will come true, he’s sure. Arba’s screaming and hissing something too, form all contorted and depraved. But that’s all in the background, Hakuryuu can barely pay attention to what Arba is doing, not when Judar’s wrathful face (or is it even a face at this point, it’s so far away from human and animal that it’s hard to process) and claws trying to stretch out to him. All those hard features start to melt away into puddles of light, and the words become just as garbled as the body. But the eyes. The eyes never melted away and even when there was just a pool of light, there were eyeballs gazing right through Hakuryuu.

“...I banish the scourge for eternity.” Hakuryuu mutters the last words and the pool of light sinks into the ground instantaneously, eyeballs following suit.

Usually when large paranormal battles like this happen in media, the clouds move aside and everything becomes clear once again. Everything’s the same here. The residue of supernatural energies jolt around the walls and the air in between. There are icicles lodges onto the ground, still far from melting. And in the middle of the room there’s a single body, bloody and limp.

Hakuyuu. 


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> late but merry christmas

Hakuyuu.

The limbs that failed to move during the fight suddenly decide they can try to crawl now that Judar has already been thrown into Hell. Hakuryuu winces with every movement, groaning at the sharp pain that spikes throughout his torso that only lead to barely an inch of progress. His arms and legs feel cold, like all the warmth is being sucked off and only made worse by his efforts to reach his brother. Hakuyuu’s survival would be miraculous at best, and Hakuryuu’s own death is practically guaranteed if the dizziness in his head tells him anything.

Still, he needs to at least reach his brother before he can join Judar. He’s almost there. Every breath takes up so much more than the last. He’s cold. So cold. He barely managed to grip his brother’s hand, and it’s actually warmer than his own. Hakuryuu’s fingers move up to the wrist, praying for a pulse and there is, there’s still one there despite how faint it feels, though maybe the weak sensation is from his own consciousness starting to slip. 

“Yuu-nii… Wake up,” His voice sounds so small, so weak, like he’s back in elementary school and he’s waking Hakuyuu up after waiting ten minutes because he needs to be dropped off for math lessons. “Wake up… it’s time to go. Please.”

No response. Not that Hakuryuu expected one, but in the cold feeling that is his entire body, a wet heat wells up in his eyes. Hakuryuu tries to dig his other hand into his pocket but his phone is all but completely crushed. Even if Hakuyuu is alive at the moment, there’s no way he’s going to be able to get the help he needs in time. Hakuryuu doesn’t care if he himself dies, but at least… at least let this betrayal be worth something.

Hakuryuu coughs and blood gets on Hakuyuu’s white shirt sleeve. The dust and tears make everything in front of him blurry, it hurts to blink. He might be getting so desperate that he’s imagining the sound of footsteps coming their way. If only.

His hand slides back down from his brother’s wrist to his hand, gripping it the best he can. He wants to feel that warmth once more before he gets eternally tortured in Hell by the one he betrayed. He keeps gripping, gripping, even if it only gets weaker and the warmth is dulling until he feels nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Hakuryuu sees when he wakes up is not some kind of torture table, or medieval weapons, or an infernal palace saturated with dark magic, but a sterile white room with a single old TV in the corner playing a soccer game between two teams he can’t recognize.

That, and the face of someone he did not think he would ever see again. 

“Hakuryuu? You’re finally awake, thank god…!”

He’s not sure why, but a smile is the last thing he wanted to see.

“Alibaba…?”

“Everyone was starting to worry that you might not make it, but I knew you would be strong enough to survive if only through willpower,” Alibaba might as well be a floating head with his mostly white apparel mixing in with the white walls. “Actually, you’re probably really confused right now, aren’t you? Just take a break, for now, I’ll get Yamuraiha.”

“Yama?”

“No, uh, you’ll see her once I get her. She’s been the one helping you.” Alibaba gives Hakuryuu a little too tight of a squeeze on the wrist before leaving the room, making sure the door closes without a sound.

Hakuryuu looks around the room some more, though his head is ringing with pain that only got worse with the sudden blabbering and exit. There’s an IV attached to him with something he can’t exactly understand but the fluid is most definitely not from a standard hospital supply. There’s a separate IV attached to his demonic arm, with a dark red mixture that feigns the color of blood. On the side, there’s also a drawer with a couple of flowers in a vase like some stereotypical scene in a drama where the protagonist finds their love interest in a coma at the hospital. Come to think of it, he’s probably been out for a while, with just how much blood he must have lost from that stab and the way that Alibaba talked. 

He doesn’t get to think much more on that before a woman comes in, one with blue hair and a myriad of shell accessories that make her look like some caricature of a sea witch.

Ah. Hakuryuu has a clue on where he thinks he is now. 

“Good morning, do you remember your name?” The lady, Yamuraiha, sits down at the stool next to the bed where Hakuryuu lays, clipboard and pen in hand.

“I do.” He feels like he shouldn’t say it to her, even though she probably already knows who he is.

“Ah, that’s great.” She smiles. “Did you remember and recognize the person who was just with you?”

“Yes, I’m sure my mental state is in the clear if that’s what you were worried about.”

“...Sounds like it, but I have to at least try to follow protocol. This setup is already shady enough as is.”

“It sure is,” Hakuryuu frowns. “Especially with whatever you’re injecting into me with those IVs.”

“Oh, these?” Yamuraiha blinks. “Normal western medicine wasn’t going to cut it so I had to make my own concoctions. They don’t have anything with any weird side effects or curses though, I swear. I have my pride as an alchemy researcher, you know.” 

Pride, huh.

“Why did you help me?”

Yamuraiha only looks more baffled. “Why wouldn’t I help? You were on the edge of death with cursed injuries that couldn’t be sewn up in a conventional hospital. Plus, it was a good proof of concept for this salve in particular I never got to test out-”

“I wouldn’t be saying that to a patient who just woke up, Yamuraiha.” There’s a man at the door and his presence immediately confirms Hakuryuu’s suspicions. He’s neck deep in Sindria ground, possibly inside their base of operations. 

“You’re… Sinbad?” He asks anyway.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Sinbad smiles in a way that must have been rehearsed thousands of times. “We’re fortunate to see you conscious again. Even with Yamuraiha’s knowledge and skills, you were still right on the edge for a couple of days. The same could be said for your brother too.”

“M-my brother?” 

“He still hasn’t woken up yet, but at least he’s in stable condition,” Sinbad sits down on the chair by the bed. “It’s a miracle, considering that… Lillith was possessing him for such a long time.”

“Where is he, I want to see him.” Hakuryuu grips the sheets. Unconscious or not, he needs proof. And he didn’t want the words of a rival business to be his source of truth.

“He’s in one of the other spare rooms we use for a clinic, but you can’t move just yet!” Yamuraiha frowns, looming over the bed ready to hold Hakuryuu down in case he tries to get up anyway. “Your wounds would probably open if you just try to get out of this bed. I barely just got most of the curse out, and that stab wound went straight through you.”

“You could at least move me to his room then, with the bed.”

Sinbad looks calm, but Yamuraiha shoots him a worried glance before speaking up. “...We wanted to make sure that your cursed wound and Hakuyuu’s soul would be able to heal, and since those came from the same source, well… we weren’t sure what might happen if you were kept too close for too long.”

“In any case, we’re grateful to see you awake,” Sinbad’s still smiling. “I’d like to have a chat sometime, when you’re feeling better, I’m really curious how you managed to seal not just Lillith but one of her stronger lackeys.”

Lackey. That’s how they think of him. That’s probably how everyone thinks of him, naturally, considering they’re all exorcists. To them, Hakuryuu just managed to pull off one of the greatest exorcisms in recent history, a suspiciously grand feat. “...Of course.”

Sinbad looks like he wants to talk more but he stands up instead. “You look tired, so I’ll leave you to rest. Yamuraiha needs to rebandage some of your wounds anyway.”

“No, I’ll be f-” Hakuryuu groans as he tries to get up and Yamuraiha gently prods him back down.

“What did I just tell you, don’t you dare try to move, just because your head’s clear doesn’t mean your torso is.” Yamuraiha scolds him and so he lies down despite how much he wants to just get up, demand to see his brother or at least move his bed over to where he is. This room is big enough for four patient beds, they could just bring Hakuyuu over here instead if they wanted. But at the same time, it would be best to shorten his stay in this place as much as possible. So he just nods and lets the woman do her work, staying silent while she explains the process of what she’s doing in too much detail.

Sinbad visits surprisingly often for a man who’s supposed to be the head of an exorcist group that no doubt must be busy dealing with the fallout of Arba’s influence.

“How are you doing?”

“Better.” Though not fast enough.

“Good, I heard from Yamuraiha that physical therapy is going well and you might be able to walk soon.” 

“Any updates about my brother?” Hakuryuu probably sounds like a broken record with how he asks that every encounter.

“Ah yeah, I actually came here to tell you some news,” says Sinbad. “Don’t worry, the good news is that Hakuyuu woke up yesterday night.”

“What- why didn’t you let me know immediately?

“Well… how would you put it…” Sinbad crosses his arms. “He’s not quite himself right now. It must be because of the extended possession. Still, it’s amazing that he made it through, I’m sure you know how survival rates are for possession, especially from higher demons.”

“I’m well aware.” Being able to just feel Hakuyuu’s pulse after the fight meant so much. What would have been the point of going so far if his brother died immediately from the exorcism and sealing? “...I’m grateful for the help you’ve given us both without a prompt. But I do want to ask to see my brother. I want to see that he’s alive with my own eyes.”

Sinbad stares at him for a moment, gaze starting at Hakuryuu’s expression and dragging down to the patch of black scales in between where the hospital gown sleeve ends and the blanket begins. “Sure,” It sounds so casual after the long gaze. “He is your family, after all, and you must’ve gone so far to try to save him. I think we have a wheelchair around here somewhere? Jafar had to use it once like last year…”

“I’ll be fine walking.” Hakuryuu’s legs shake in protest as soon as his feet hit the ground, and his head spins in agreement.

Sinbad sighs. “If that’s what you think. The room is two doors to your left.”

Sinbad won’t be guiding him to the room or sitting with them. Good. “Thank you.” Hakuryuu keeps his grip firm on the IV as he takes one step after another out of the room and down the hall.

He knocks on the door. No response. There’s a good chance that Hakuyuu might be asleep again, which is fair considering what his physical and mental condition must be. Hakuryuu tugs his sleeve down, though pulling at a short sleeve does nothing to conceal the monstrosity that is his arm. He can almost hear the round of interrogations in the back of his pounding head. But it’ll be okay, they’re both alive to some extent. That’s what matters. That’s what he fought for.

Hakuryuu opens the door with bated breath. The sunlight comes in better on this side of the building, making the pure white sheets shine directly into his eyes. He has to blink and adjust to the sudden brightness before he could really see his brother, eyes shut and brow unfurrowed and looking so… peaceful that Hakuryuu feels like he should just close the door and leave the sleeping man be.

He walks closer, careful with each step as though the shakiness of his legs would make a noise, until he finally settles down on the chair to observe him better. He reaches out his human hand towards Hakuyuu’s wrist once more and the pulse is there, more present than before. He lets out a sigh of relief. Hakuyuu, aside from the hospital setting, looks normal again. Like the few occasions where Hakuei convinces him that he’s been working for way too long and needs to take a nap.

There’s something bubbling up from inside, burning up from the throat and making the Hakuyuu in front of him look blurry until Hakuryuu blinks and lets the tears fall down. He hasn’t felt a surge of emotion like this since he sold his soul off to Judar. Everything intense he had felt from then, from the first defeat to tarnishing his parents’ souls to betraying the one who gave him the power to fight, felt like something carving into him, digging out whatever must have been inside. This time it feels like whatever was left after all that scraping is coming back and growing to the size of something almost human again.

He just lets himself sit there and weep. It’s even refreshing, in a sense. The wailing would sound pathetic to anyone who might overhear, but he grips Hakuyuu’s hand with his, taking in that human warmth, that proof of some humanity still alight in his brother’s body. There’s no crooked smiles or pitch black eyes or suffocating demonic air or icicles or gleaming red eyes that look at him like he’s something greater than he is or-

“Mmgh..” There’s the smallest of groans, eyes still shut, but brow furrowing to something that looks more like Hakuyuu. 

Hakuryuu sniffles but tries to get himself together. “Yuu-nii,” He tries to say in the softest tone he can, although it probably sounds more like a croak. “It’s okay, I’m here now.”

Hakuyuu groans again, the way he does when he’s dealing with a head-splitting migraine. He brings his free hand to rub his temples and opens his eyes, looking right at Hakuryuu.

“Yuu-nii.” Hakuryuu’s face brightens up. Hakuyuu’s only reflects horror. The older one yanks his hand away and lunges right at Hakuryuu, aiming right for the throat.

Hakuyuu might be weak in his current state, but so is Hakuryuu and he couldn’t register what’s going on until they’re both on the ground, IVs and medical machinery ripped off and screaming in ruckus, a pressure slamming right down on his throat, and nearly incoherent yelling from a man that sounds like he’s lost his mind.

“Out, foul demon, out!” Hakuyuu starts blabbering out different exorcism spells and Hakuryuu grabs his brother’s wrists, trying to pry them off while gasping for air. The hands only dig in deeper in response, pushing out any words he wanted to say. Hakuryuu wheezes but he can’t get himself to force his brother off, whether it’s the shock and dizziness or he’s still too weak or he just can’t get himself to do it because as manic and crazed as Hakuyuu is, it’s still his brother. 

“H-Ha...Haagh-” Hakuryuu kicks Hakuyuu in the gut and felt something tear in him too. Probably the stitches. His human hand’s nails dig into his brother’s wrist as the other’s grip loosens just enough to take a breath of air, strangled but there. “I-It’s me, Hakuryuu.. P-please-”

“Get out of my brother.”

Oh.

“You can take me, just get out of my brother-!”

“Hakuyuu, please get back to your bed!” There’s another person in the room, probably Sinbad based on the voice, but Hakuryuu can’t register the blur of a body that runs over to pull Hakuyuu away.

“Wha- who do you think you are?” Hakuyuu’s putting up a fight, but an exhausted, sick, deluded person can only do so much against an exorcist in a sound mind and body. It’s pathetic to watch, really. So pathetically sad.

At some point, Sinbad yells for Yamuraiha and she hurries over to inject something into Hakuyuu so sedate him, before looking over and gasping at the sight of Hakuryuu. “Your wounds! Oh no, we have to restitch all of them… Sinbad, help me out.”

“In a second.” Sinbad’s doing something up there on the bed, probably hooking up whatever machinery back on the dazed and falling unconscious Hakuyuu. He finishes that up pretty quickly and goes over to pick up Hakuryuu.

“You don’t... need to do this.” Hakuryuu tries to protest, trying to brush Sinbad aside despite how ridiculous that must look while being carried bridal style.

“I find that hard to believe when you’re bleeding all over.” Mercifully, the trip is short, and Yamuraiha is right there to start treating the wound.

“What exactly happened? He looked like he was going to murder you.” She ties back her hair and puts on gloves so she won’t jab an infection into Hakuryuu’s chest with her fingers.

“That’s exactly what was happening.” Hakuryuu tries not to look down, not because the treatment was too painful to look at, if anything, that’s the easier part. Looking down means acknowledging that the events that just happened are real. “He. He mistook me for a demon.”

“Oh no… I’m sorry that happened. From your own blood too.” 

“My own blood?”

“Yeah. Uh, your brother.” Yamuraiha keeps looking down, focused on the wound.

“...Yes.” Who in the 21st century refers to a sibling with one’s “own blood”?

“Well, being possessed by a demon, and Lillith by that, must have been deeply traumatizing. I know this is hard to take, but you’ll probably want to keep your distance from Hakuyuu for a while. Jafar or I can try to talk to him later.”

“I can’t talk to him?” Sinbad asks.

“Absolutely not.”

Sinbad sighs but doesn’t fight it.

“I appreciate it, thank you.” Hakuryuu’s words come out empty and he looks out the window, wincing as Yamuraiha finishes treating the wound and starts to restitch it. Don’t think too much about it. Don’t think too much about it. He focuses on the feeling of each puncture on the skin instead. 


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit of a shorter chapter, but I didn't want to add another scene onto it for length consistency only, so here ya go, first chapter of 2020

It takes a whole week of nothing but a TV full of soap operas and visits from Yamuraiha, Alibaba, and occasionally Sinbad before Hakuryuu hears anything about his brother again.

"Sinbad told me that Hakuyuu might be well enough for a proper visit now." Jafar only comes in when he has to act as a messenger. He keeps a polite enough face, but it's questionable whether he's just busy or would rather deal with any other order of business.

Anyway, the man's entrance makes Hakuryuu miss the completely expected car crash on the heroine's crooked mother on the show, a loss that he should not be this disappointed about. "...Are you sure about this?"

Jafar sighs, "Sinbad is." And that's more than enough reason to doubt.

“If, if he’s ready for it.” There’s no doubt that Hakuryuu wants to see his brother, wants to try again but. But.

“If you’re not sure about this, then that’s fine too,” Jafar’s expression doesn’t change. “It’s not as though I have any reason to force an interaction between you two.”

“No,” Hakuryuu frowns. “I’m ready.”

Jafar sighs, a look of disbelief on his face. “I’ll escort you since you can’t exactly walk freely with those wounds.” The man doesn’t try too hard in making any side talk as Hakuryuu basically drags his feet to the room. It’s nice to have this bit of silence, even if it’s a little awkward, far better than the moments that drag by with Sinbad or the alchemical tangents that Yamuraiha delves too deep in to fill the silence in between stitches. 

Jafar is polite enough to head off when they reach the door. “I’ll leave you two be.”

“Thank you.” Hakuryuu’s words don’t sound as earnest as they are. Jafar just nods and goes off to whatever his next order of business is. He wouldn’t be too bad of a person to work with, had he not been completely loyal to Sinbad, but enough of that.

Hakuryuu knocks on the door.

“Come in.” The words are muffled through the door, but they’re coherent and calm. He closes his eyes and counts to three before opening the door as naturally as he can.

Hakuyuu flinches very noticeably but tries to keep a calm demeanor. He probably already has a good idea of what happened, if the others explained the situation as they should have. Even if they didn’t, a medium’s eyes can see a whole story lurking underneath the black scales. His mouth opens and closes without a word, like a little goldfish gaping at something it can’t quite comprehend.

“Yuu-nii, it’s me.”

“Yes… Hakuryuu. You’re here.” Not “alive.” But here. That’s good enough.

“And you’re alive, thank god.” Hakuryuu gently closes the door behind him but his brother flinches again. The jittery motion feels almost as out of place as Arba’s crooked smiles. Maybe Hakuyuu still sees just a demon instead of his little brother, maybe his eyes and those finely tuned supernatural senses are all telling him to run or fight despite knowing, rationally, who this is supposed to be, who the name of this approaching figure is.

“It’s a miracle I made it… I’m sorry for letting my guard down.” When he looks down at the sheets and grips them, he looks closer to his normal self. “I must have made you and everyone else so worried… How’s Hakuren and Hakuei?”

“Alive.” 

“Oh. I see.” Hakuyuu doesn’t ask what Hakuryuu expects him to ask, instead letting a heavy silence set in, made even worse with a complete lack of eye contact.

Hakuryuu clears his throat. “I suppose I should tell you everything that happened.”

“Sinbad gave me… a brief explanation. From his perspective.”

“You don’t want to hear from me?” Hakuryuu snaps.

“No, no. I do. I only have a very brief, general idea of what happened.”

He’s definitely just backing off. “Understood. First of all, I’m not sure how much you were able to see while Ar-... while Lillith was possessing you.”

Hakuyuu rubs his temples. “It… It was surreal. I’m not so sure myself. I don’t even know how to start explaining what I felt through that entire time.”

Judar never told Hakuryuu about what possession is like. Though he doubts that a demon would understand what the human host would be going through. “It’s okay, you don’t need to explain, Yuu-nii.” He’d reach his hand out, but apparently just looking at Hakuryuu seems to take a considerable amount of emotional effort from Hakuyuu. 

Hakuryuu explains everything or rather gives a condensed version with all of the important details, conveniently leaving out details such as their parents’ souls and having to live at a random hotel room that Judar took over and whatever implications can come with that. Explaining he used Judar as an instrument to seal Arba away for eternity without all of the context makes him sound like some kind of mastermind that intended to throw Judar away from the start. Had Morgiana come to him with the spell information from the start, before running away and selling his soul, then Hakuryuu might have gone through with that cleanly. It would’ve been much easier.

At least Hakuyuu didn’t delve too deep into questions like he usually would. The somewhat glazed look in his eyes show that he’s probably too tired to critically examine everything. Maybe he’d given up on trying to understand why his youngest brother would go through such lengths working with a demon. 

“I’m sorry to have made you worry so much.” Hakuyuu’s still looking down at the sheets but his lips quiver as he tries to keep himself together. “I… I didn’t want you to go farther with that demon, and I’m still not sure what went wrong with trying to summon him, but it was rash of me. And it certainly didn’t help with the original issue.”

Hakuryuu hides his arm behind him. “He told me he never had a “true name” that could be used for summoning, and his ties with Lillith was what most likely caused that.”

“No true name… Is something like that even possible?”

“I don’t know.” But dealing with Judar has shown Hakuryuu that there are more exceptions to the rule than one expects.

There’s a moment of silence before Hakuyuu speaks up again. “...You’ll have to see him again after you die though, right? Your soul… your soul’s already in Hell.”

“Yeah.” There’s no going back on what he did. Even if there was some secret information about how to get out of a demon contract, there’s no way that he’ll be able to perform it when he’s here and Judar is... there. “I’m. Perfectly aware of what’s going to happen to me when I die.” He’s sure it’ll be worse than any normal punishment for sinners in Hell.

“Hakuryuu…” His brother actually looks up at him now, meeting eye to eye.

“Either way, you’re alive. That’s what matters.”

“Thank you.”

Hakuryuu blinks. He tries to look for anything off in his brother’s expression but there’s nothing.

“I certainly would’ve never wanted you to do any of these things, but it’s still true that you saved me and I’m grateful for that.” 

“O-Of course I would try to get you back.” Hakuryuu grips his pant leg to try to keep his shaking down. “I would do it even if it killed me.”

Hakuyuu’s gaze softens for the first time in this whole interaction, actually seeing Hakuryuu now instead of an empty vessel for a demon to play with. “I should be the one saying that. I should be the one that has to look after you. Instead, I made a rookie mistake and got you into a much larger mess than you should have ever dealt with.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’re here now, you’re yourself.”

“And I’ll make sure to get you back, too.”

Hakuryuu’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“I know you’re here now, but that demon still has your soul. Your arm is proof enough.” There’s a violent sharpness to Hakuyuu’s eyes, a sudden contrast to the slightly glazed, tired look he’d been wearing up until now. It’s the look of vengeance that doesn’t tire, no matter how much the rest of the body wants to quit, Hakuryuu can recognize it in a heartbeat. “You don’t have to worry about me anymore. Once I’m fully recovered, I’ll get you back and make sure no filthy demon can ever get its hands on you again.”

Hakuryuu doesn’t know how to respond, so he just doesn’t. 


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hakuryuu does a Marie Kondo

“What will you do now, Hakuryuu?”

He didn’t want to have his train of thought interrupted by anyone, especially not Sinbad. If he could walk normally, he would just leave.

“Why do you ask.”

“I’m just curious, is all,” Sinbad crosses his arms. “I tried. I asked Hakuren multiple times if he wanted to speak to you if only to try to reconnect, but it looked like he just wanted to make a quick trip to pick Hakuyuu up.”

“I’m sorry for that, but that really was a waste of effort.” People assume that the most stubborn one of the family must be him or Hakuyuu, but they’ve just never personally angered Hakuren.

“Ah. I figured he would be more easygoing, but family drama does run deep.” Sinbad doesn’t look too bothered. He probably got a favorable deal out of Hakuren for the “generous medical treatment” of their older brother. “Anyway, you haven’t answered the question.”

“Continue working, obviously. Clearly there’s a lot of work leftover even though Lillith is gone.”

“By yourself?”

“You don’t have to worry about me staying here if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s not a worry.” Sinbad laughs. “Anything but that. You’ve become quite the impressive exorcist. It’s not every day that someone can even see a demon like Arba and live.”

Hakuryuu blinks.

“You recognize that name too? Well, Lillith has many names spread throughout many eras and cultures.”

“The demon I worked with told me that Arba is her true name, though.”

“Hm.” Sinbad’s expression is unreadable for someone who likes to look bright and shining all the time. “Well. Clearly, you know how to rise up to the impossible. I haven’t met anyone with this level of determination in a long, long time. I would be happy to let you stay as long as you’d like if you’re going to continue the cause of eliminating all demonic influences.”

Hakuryuu hates to admit it, but it’s tempting in a way. To betray the cowards that have betrayed him. Sinbad and the others would be powerful allies, the best that he’d be able to find without reaching his hand into Hell again.

“I thank you for the invitation, but no, I don’t think I can take it right now. I have a place where I can stay once I’m done healing, and I have my own work to do.”

“I see. I won’t push you, a lot has happened recently. Just know that my offer stands indefinitely, we’d be willing to lend you a hand if the occasion arises.” Sinbad smiles and Hakuryuu feels his jaw clench. All of his siblings have always felt unpleasant around this man for something that can’t be worded besides intuition, but right now it makes him feel sick. Sinbad either doesn’t notice or does a great job of pretending to be oblivious. “You can take your time here too. Yamuraiha is very resourceful when it comes to developing medicines, it has made our resources last much longer than you’d expect.”

“Thank you.” The words come out like a typewriter.

Hakuryuu leaves the first day he can, only reluctantly taking a couple of elixirs from Yamuraiha because she and Alibaba had insisted so hard. Sinbad didn’t seem so pushy about it either way, offering out of politeness but not with the incessant polite pushing that you’d see from a Chinese family gathering. Going back to his family is likely out of the question, he’s sure that if Hakuren was unwilling to even look at him during that visit, then he would just shut the door if Hakuryuu went out of his way to visit him. Even if Hakuyuu was on his side (and even then “on his side” is a weird way to put the strange form of pity and anger that the oldest brother held for the “loss” of the youngest.) So he’s got to go to the quieter option, the worst option.

The hotel receptionist doesn’t notice Hakuryuu’s entrance. None of the staff has since the first day, likely the work of some spell. Or maybe they’re just too afraid to ask. Hakuryuu walks right to the elevator, selecting the thirteenth floor without looking at the buttons, looking down at the ground as two other people join at the last second. Whoever they are, they don’t choose a different floor, which is odd considering there are twenty floors in total. He looks up.

“What do you want.” Hakuryuu frowns.

“We need to talk.” Kougyoku’s bare-faced today. She must’ve been in a real rush.

“No, we don’t. Shouldn’t you be helping Yuu-nii recover? Or are you two going to rip this arm off of me now that Judar’s no longer here?”

Kougyoku’s gaze falters, and Morgiana gently rests a hand on her back. He’s never seen his cousin look so tired, but that might just be because of the makeup. “So it’s true. I wasn’t sure if I could believe what the others were saying, but if it’s coming from you…”

“So that’s how you decided to seal Arba,” Morgiana interjects.

“Yeah.” He glares at the Fanalis. “Two major threats down in one, you can report that to your superiors.”

“I… didn’t expect that you’d execute it like that.” The frown on Morgiana’s lips looks disappointed, but not deeply angered. It doesn’t make any sense, after all, this situation is completely in her benefit considering her duties. Cleanup of the aftermath should’ve been easy for her, almost tedious in its relative lack of difficulty.

“Are you really just going to talk about it like that?” Kougyoku snaps, fists balled up.

“What are you getting all worked up for?” Hakuryuu blinks. The elevator door opens and he steps out first, the two girls following right behind him. 

“What, don’t tell me that for all of that time, you meant to just use Judar as a tool from the very beginning.” Kougyoku takes a step closer, staring Hakuryuu straight in the eyes. “Look at me right in the eyes and tell me that. Try me.”

“You’re really going to get this worked up over a demon you barely knew?” He forces out the word “demon” like poison stuck in his mouth just like how his brothers would. “Don’t tell me you’re actually attached after the couple times you’ve talked to him, he was probably messing around with you the whole time.”

“He was like that to you too, and you’re the one that signed your soul off to him! You basically gave your whole self to him! And I know you’re not the type to sell your soul for something stupid like wealth because you  _ know _ what the value of a soul is, you’ve worked with souls and the dead your whole life!”

Hakuryuu winces.

“And, and, don’t fucking try to tell me that it was all for the sake of getting Hakuyuu back, don’t you dare. I know you, you and all your brothers are stupid stubborn, you would’ve died trying to get Hakuyuu back without interacting with Judar if you really thought of him as a tool!”

“Kougyoku…” Morgiana tries to speak up.

“Somewhere in that stupid thick skull of yours, you cared, whether you knew it or not, so don’t go trying to say that you got,” Kougyoku clears her throat to make a mocking impression, “‘Two major threats down in one.’ I bet you were the one who was grazing through all of those graveyards, right? Hakuren and Hakuei told Kouen about what they saw. They also saw that Aunt and Uncle weren’t there anymore when they returned the next day.”

Of course they know, Hakuryuu was too bull-headed to even think about what others would think about that once they inevitably found out. 

“You  _ wanted _ it to work out, but it didn’t, but you’re just gonna act like you meant to be a horrible person this whole time? What, did you wish you were actually that horrible? Do you want to be completely soulless?”

Ironic use of words. “I don’t want to hear anything from you, what have you been doing this entire time besides just sitting around, twiddling your thumbs like everyone else? Even you,” Hakuryuu glares at Morgiana, “Did you actually  _ do _ anything? You just wanted to give this spell to me and then blame me for using it?”

“I didn’t tell you to use it like that-”

“Then what was I supposed to do with it? There was no way I could have enough energy to pull it off otherwise! You should know that!”

Morgiana bites her lip.

“What. What do you want to say. Just say it to me right now.”

“...It’s best to not say it for now.”

“Tell me!” Hakuryuu grips Morgiana’s shoulder to shake her, but her stance remains rock solid. These Fanalis and their absurd strength. Kougyoku pries Hakuryuu’s hands off of her anyway with a frustrated scream.

“Stop! Just stop!” Kougyoku pulls Morgiana away and the Fanalis lets herself be moved this time. “If you’re just going to be like this then fine, do whatever you want. Don’t expect me to come and help you then.” Kougyoku shakes her head. “Honestly I don’t know why I came here. It’s not like anything I can do anything to undo this…” She lets out a frustrated sigh and walks out. Morgiana takes one look back at Hakuryuu before following behind. Not that they had much to walk, it was barely just a step and they have to wait for the elevator to get back up so they can leave.

“Fine. I hope I don’t see you again.” Hakuryuu practically hisses. Opening the hotel room door and slamming it in front of them does almost nothing when the room is filled with everything that could possibly guilt him.

There are some clothes that are left splayed on the dining set chairs. Before moving in, Hakuryuu always assumed that Judar used illusions to create the slight variations in the similar outfits he wore, but he bought (or stole, no difference) every single item of clothing he owned, including the five crop tops that look almost exactly the same but apparently are made of different fabrics and textures.

He grabs them and shoves them in the trash can. That was going to be it, but after a minute of silence, Hakuryuu goes back into the closet and throws away every single item of Judar’s, chucking the hangers with them too. He practically breaks the nightstands opening the drawers to grab handfuls of jewelry, not caring if the pointy parts of the earrings jabbed at his hands as he shoved everything away. The trash bag slogs by as Hakuryuu brings it down to the garbage disposal room and leaves it aside for the garbage collector to handle whenever they’re due to arrive.

The place is still going to reek of him though. Hakuryuu’s not sure if he’ll be able to clean off everything, but he can sure try, even if the whole place stings of chemical cleaners by the end. 

 

* * *

 

It does smell like chemicals, suffocatingly so. It’s fine. Opening the windows will help to get rid of everything, the wind doesn’t care about which scent was from what.

 

* * *

 

There’s almost nothing in the room beside the bare essentials now, which is fine. Hakuryuu would consider himself more of a minimalist than a materialist, though material goods can put their part in acting as a distraction. What’s the point of trying to distract himself though? His ability to focus has been sharpened too much for his own good.

 

* * *

 

There’s a knock on the door.

There can’t possibly be anyone worth talking to at this time. Hakuryuu doesn’t move from the bed.

More firm knocking.

What a nuisance. It’s most likely Kougyoku. She likes to pretend she’s determined to never see you again and then come back a couple of days later to try again because she’s too nice to truly give up once she cares about someone. She gets too distracted. She’s not worth his time. Hakuryuu closes his eyes.

The door comes apart with a force so hard it’s surprising it only hit the opposite wall instead of making a hole in that too. Now Hakuryuu gets up, dizziness following right beside him as his body gets used to standing up again.

“I figured you might have been asleep since you didn’t answer the door,” Morgiana says all matter-of-fact with a slight bow to her head as if she didn’t do something absurd by breaking the door down after two knocking attempts. “I’m not here to force you to do anything, just wanted to talk.”

“What could you possibly want to talk about, leave. Or better yet, go back to guarding the gates of Hell like you should.”

“I’ve been out of that station for a while,” she says. “And I’m not here to act as a mouthpiece to Kougyoku or anyone else in your family.”

“Are you here to praise me now that Kougyoku Isn't here?”

“Far from it.” Morgiana looks down. “You… look like a mess. Have you just been cooping up here for the whole week?

Had it already been a week since that encounter? Everything has blurred together since anything that could possibly remind Hakuryuu of Judar has been thrown out and sanitized thrice. And yet there are always spots that remain, bits and pieces that grow in presence the longer they lay there, unattended.

Morgiana stares at him like he’s some pitiful thing, but one that doesn’t garner actual sympathy. “Are you just going to let yourself rot here.”

“I don’t see why you need to come over here and talk to me if that’s all you’re going to say.” He can’t shut the door in front of her, and picking up the door from the ground to lodge it back in is too much. 

“I’m not here to make any judgments on what you did with that demon. Unlike Kougyoku or you, I never really knew him. But are you really just going to sit there and do nothing until you have to meet with him again, face to face?”

“Are you going to tell me to make up with my family,” He glares. “Both of my brothers consider me dead.”

“I mean, I think you should eventually but I’m not going to force that. I do have a problem with the fact that you seemed to have done absolutely nothing since leaving Sindria’s care.”

Hakuryuu frowns.

Morgiana pauses, then decides to continue on. “You know exactly where you’re going after you die. No demon would welcome you with open arms after what you’ve done. Are you just going to resign yourself to that?”

“I never said that.” His lip quivers. Must be the dull hunger buzzing in the background.

“You look like you’re ready to make this room your deathbed.”

“I don’t want to hear anything from a glorified hellhound that has zero agency.”

“Waiting for your inevitable death and punishment doesn’t sound like agency to me.” Morgiana crosses her arms, arm veins clear to the eye even when she’s not flexing. “Things are the way they are because of your actions.”

Ah. He gets what she’s trying to say now. He hates to admit it, but he nods.

“But I’m also the one that did hand you the spell, that’s true. So… I will help you. I’ll help you fight any demon threat that comes up from now, so that the banishing was worth it.” She brings her arms back to her sides and bows her head.

“...You’re offering help to me after breaking down my door.”

Morgiana’s eyes dart away. “W-well, you weren’t responding and I knew you were there, so…”

“Fine. But fix my door first.”

“Understood.” 


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe one day i'll establish a work-life balance where i actually write on a regular basis. hm.

“Are you awake?”

 

A grumbled noise, hoarse and tired, break through just barely.

 

“Guess that’s close enough. Do you remember who you are?”

 

It takes a couple attempts but eventually comes out in something barely comprehensible. “... ‘Course I do, the fuck are you doing here? Did you-” there’s a series of coughs, “-want a piece of my guts too?”

 

A sigh. “Who do you think I am? I’m trying to help you, you know.”

 

“What the fuck do you want from me then. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

 

“Even though I just gave you a big favor?”

 

“Never asked for it.”

 

Another sigh. If they keep going on like this, he’s going to sound like a badly written character that just sighs at every response. “Well, now you’re here unless you’re just going to throw yourself back into where you were.”

 

“Fuck off, Samael.”

 

“Don’t bring names into this, Naamah.”

 

There’s a couple more coughs but it fades into silence.

 

\--

 

Kougyoku is being particularly difficult to work with today. Hakuryuu’s mostly used to the layer of resentment that underlies most of their interactions, but their mutual lack of agreeability waxes and wanes together in the course of the year, and you could call this the full moon of their tensions.

 

Happy anniversary. Judar’s been sealed for five years.

 

Hakuryuu expected this the first, second, and even third year. The fourth year, he was hoping that Kougyoku might calm down a little because even from day one, he thought that she was overreactive considering the relatively short amount of time that she ever interacted with Judar. It just didn’t make sense and was a wild whiplash compared to the rest of the family, who probably thought this was rather convenient even if it leaves several problems left out in the open. But not Kougyoku. When they were little, Hakuryuu always thought of Kougyoku as the most compliant of them all, shrinking into the background and going along with what her big half-brothers would say since she felt so barely tethered to the family. Turns out she’ll keep an iron grip on that tether while lashing out for what she wants righted. Even if there’s nothing that can be done anymore.

 

He walks down the street with one of those hiking backpacks and wearing an oversized black coat with more pockets inside than out, each filled to the brim with different material that would look criminally suspicious to a random passerby. It just makes the coat look even more swollen than it already is, however, and it makes Hakuryuu look like he’s about to head off to live in a cabin out in the mountains alone for the winter. Such isolation would sound pleasing both because and if not for all the debts he has to repay. With every payment, the leftover amount only feels larger.

 

Half of the storefronts are closed or gated, and he’s in the edges of town where they don’t bother to put up “For Lease” signs on these anymore, especially after a spike of criminal activity five years ago that has sustained its magnitude. If anything, it’s only growing, even as he, Kougyoku, and Morgiana have been cracking down case after case of vengeful spirits that smell all too familiar. There’s still a couple of businesses that appear to keep going on decently well, a dim local pulse that still pumps life into the area, even if a lot of them are chains. Like that one bakery chain with the pastries so sweet it’d make Hakuryuu gag.

 

He glances over at the place, filled with people grabbing and going, barely a few tables occupied with those who sit to work or sit because they have no work. One of what Hakuryuu assumes would be the latter looks tattered, black hood up, a mask covering the bottom half of his face, bangs a mess and covering a good deal of the other half. The person’s eyes are closed like he wants to sleep but can’t. But they open, and they look straight at Hakuryuu, a dulled red that Hakuryuu has never seen before yet looks all too familiar.

 

The hooded figure’s gone by the time Hakuryuu enters, there viewing from the outside, vanished as soon as Hakuryuu crosses the door and there’s the split second where there’s no glass to look through. 

 

What kind of farce is this.

 

Hakuryuu stands there, looking around at anything that might look like what he swore he saw, but all he gets are people who avoid eye contact as they try to get what they need and move on.

 

He leaves and doesn’t look at anything but the street for the rest of the walk, all the way to the near-empty park where Kougyoku and Morgiana stick out with their vibrant hair colors. 

 

“You’re never late,” says Kougyoku.

 

“You’re never early.” Hakuryuu relieves himself of the backpack by putting it on the nearest bench. “And you never tell me to bring things without telling me what you need them for.”

 

There’s a worried look on Kougyoku’s face, if only for a moment. She washes it away with annoyance. “I mean, we’ve been working on the same thing for the last couple years. I think it’s pretty obvious by now.”

 

“This is way more than we’ve ever needed before. If something huge started all of a sudden, I think I would notice.” Hakuryuu unzips the coat just enough to let himself breathe freely, but the weights in his pockets are bumpy and uneven, leaning more towards his left shoulder and being a general annoyance.

 

Morgiana frowns. “It’s surprising you haven’t noticed anything.”

 

“...What does that mean.” 

 

“You haven’t noticed the air getting thicker? We’re suspecting that something significant has broken out, on the scale of a historical figure’s vengeful ghost or even a demon.” 

 

She’s right, he should have noticed something like that, if it’s that obvious to Morgiana and even Kougyoku, it should’ve been something that woke him up from his sleep in the middle of the night. Not that he sleeps that much. Instead of making any acknowledgment, Hakuryuu starts giving the vials of salamander tails and frog eyes to Kougyoku.

 

"What's our next course of action then?"

 

"Uh, for one we're gonna need to set up watchposts, these ingredients should help keep their catalysts charged for a while." Kougyoku shows Hakuryuu a photo of a map she drew of the city.

 

"That's. That's horrible. You're telling me you're going to be putting them in that formation, with the head node to the southeast?"

 

"Hey, you're the one who got tutored on this, I'm just trying my best here."

 

"You should've just told me to do it instead." Hakuryuu snatches the phone from her and deletes the photo.

 

"Wh-what do you think you're doing? You could at least modify it!"

 

"It'd take too long to modify it, I'd rather start from the beginning."

 

Kougyoku scowls. "That's at least a full hour… Give it back, I remember mine enough to draw out the basics and we can work from there."

 

"I'm not going to waste all of this on your worthless formation." They keep bickering on for a while until Hakuryuu yanks his materials back and tells them that they'll have to meet another time. He'll make sure to have the right map ready by then.

 

On his way back, he looks through the window of the bakery again. Nothing abnormal in sight, yet he feels the chill of a ghost down his spine. That’s not his medium senses, just his paranoia, he tells himself, again and again until the streets look familiar and haunting in a different sense. These streets make up the tank where he’ll slave away until he dies. At this point, he dares call it procrastinating from the inevitable issue that lies beyond his mortal death, but the fanalis won’t have that. She’s one of the few relatively reasonable people left in this damn business.

Even when Hakuryuu comes back “home”, it never feels comfortable. Just okay enough to fall asleep every once in a while. The other nights, he’ll hear something that makes him think that there’s something or someone else here, stare at the open closet door, body frozen, until he remembers that he probably left it open after he dumped his coat in a half-asleep state the other night. What else happened between those nights, whether his body won over the insomnia or if he spent the majority of the dark hours staring at the ceiling because it’s the most nondescript part of the hotel room, he isn’t sure. It’s useless to fret about the details, and it’s not as though he can’t do the work he needs to do or anything like that, so in that sense, things are still fine. Things are fine, it’s just a matter of waiting, waiting and doing what needs to be done in the process. He’s doing all of that well, ghosts of his consciousness and mess on the floor of his closet be damned.

His mind won’t stop wandering to the false encounter, turning on automatically after he forces himself to bathe and then lays down on the bed, new and improved map resting on the second pillow. What, does he want the damn demon to come back from hell (which would potentially mean Arba’s jailbreak too) and pretend that he can just… say sorry as if that would resolve everything? It would be difficult for a saint to accept an apology for something so treacherous, let alone a demon that never had much of a sense of morality in the first place. Funny how a demon could lack most conventional morals but have a sense of trust.

It’s not funny, it’s twisted, Hakuryuu needs to stop thinking. He gets up and crushes the new map into a crumpled ball. He can make a better version of this. There won’t be any room for argument when Kougyoku sees how much more efficiently they can survey the area. When he does make a new map, he stares at it for a couple of minutes before he decides once more, it can be done better. Make, stare, discard, rinse, and repeat.

An alarm shocks him back to full awareness from.. Something. He may have dozed off in the middle, or maybe just in short drops of rest, it’s hard to tell. But the last map he’s drawn is still in front of him, on pure paper that has yet to be crinkled, so Hakuryuu can consider this a success. It’s just a matter of meeting up with Kougyoku and Morgiana again.

He walks the whole length there because he doesn’t want to deal with another scenario of sleeping through or just missing the bus stop he’s supposed to transfer at, and that way he won’t be absurdly early either, there’s still maybe an hour and a half before they’re supposed to reconvene? But there’s no point in staying in the room, so walking it is.

Walking down the street, there’s an old lady pushing a cart filled with individually wrapped pastries and packets of fruit gummies coming his way. Hakuryuu looks away, not wanting to buy anything. She keeps staring at him, an obvious overlooking feeling that refuses to go away.

“Young man, I would take the bus if I were you.”

“...Excuse me?” He should’ve just kept walking.

“I don’t think you’ll like what you see ahead, lest you want spit on your face.”

Oh, maybe she’s referring to the park a couple blocks down where many of the homeless end up camping in. “I’ll be fine, thank you.” Hakuryuu resumes walking as the old lady keeps watching. A pair of eyes has never stopped him. 

Someone does end up trying to spit on him as he walks past the park, even though he stays on the other side of the fence. Hakuryuu only looks back a second after the spit narrowly misses his nose, and stops when he sees only one person. They’re wearing a mask covering the lower half of their face, and sunglasses despite the cloudy weather. There’s no way they could have just spat on him, yet no one else could have done it. Hakuryuu tries not to waste too much time staring and walks again, only for the figure on the other side to shadow him. He’s almost at the end where the fence has a corner when he hears a rough grumble of a noise, too dry and garbled to sound human. Hakuryuu looks back again. The figure takes their sunglasses off.

It’s been a while since he’s seen red.

“J-” The sound gets caught in Hakuryuu’s throat and he swallows only for no spit to come down. Like an idiot, he wraps around the corner of the park to the opening and enters, even though a fenced area like this is the easiest location to set up a bounded domain.

Another grumbled noise, then the clearing of the throat. Then some word that Hakuryuu assumes is a slur in some language or another.

“...Fuck,” That voice has gotten much more hoarse than Hakuryuu remembers. “Speaking… is a bitch like this.” Gloved fingers go behind the ear and undoes one side of the mask, letting it hang freely from the other ear.

The first thing Hakuryuu notices is not what the face looks like beneath the mask, but the stench of rotting flesh that erupts free from the mask’s grasp. Then there’s the sound of something falling to the ground with a slop. Flesh doesn’t slip off so much as gives up on tethering to life and falls to the muddy ground.

“What... not even grossed out?”

It’s everything Hakuryuu could do to not cover his mouth and gag. “... No. Not by you, Judar.”

“Hmph,”  Judar grinds his teeth and the muscles connecting the right side of his jaw look ready to break off. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

It’s not so much that he doesn’t have anything to say, moreso that he has no idea where to start, and what’s appropriate, and if any of it would make a difference to a demon that knows a thing or two about holding grudges for years and years. “Well. I assume you’re here to kill me yourself.”

Judar grunts too low for his usual voice, the malicious yet playful voice Hakuryuu was once familiar with. “I wish. Do you know what they did to me?”

“I can’t possibly comprehend.”

“Stop acting like some humble worshipper bitch!” The demon’s voice cracked but not in the awkward teenager way, more like the actual vocal chords were about to snap. There’s no way an injury like that could be sustained for so long on a high demon like him unless it was done through a holy weapon, or at least to Hakuryuu’s human knowledge. “Of course you couldn’t. Arba had nothing to lose in messing with me now that she knew she was never going anywhere again. Just the pits of hell and a toy to mess with forever. Did you know most torture techniques were developed by people who had deals with demons and got a preview of what their afterlife was going to look like? Even then, it barely does shit.. Human minds and bodies break too easily. Time goes by faster too.” Judar spits again, not at Hakuryuu, but to the ground, and this time the saliva’s mixed with blood.

“...I’m sorry.” It sounds even more pathetic than Hakuryuu expected.

Judar stops and looks Hakuryuu straight in the eyes, maybe to check whether it was genuine or closer to the whines of a puppy who just wants the yelling to stop because they don’t know better.

“You think saying sorry. Does anything?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“Then why’d you say it, you son of a bitch?”

“...To say that you can take my head as the first part of an apology.” Hakuryuu’s knees bend down for him, and the mistake of an exorcist finds himself staring down at a ground much closer than it was before.

“You’re, you’re kidding me.” There’s actual disbelief in Judar’s tone, beyond the condescending glaze layered over it threefold.

“Would I be doing this if I was kidding?” Hakuryuu doesn’t look up. “I’m not funny enough to pull that off.”

The temperature in the air drops so sharply that Hakuryuu finds himself shivering in place, sitting on his knees, staring down at freezing mud that makes must make the sight look extremely pathetic. Another small clump of flesh falls off and Judar stomps on it. It cracks and shatters, already frozen during the fall.

“I don’t get you.” There’s the sound of something being adjusted. “Stop staring at the ground like a mutt.”

Hakuryuu looks up. Judar put his mask back on. It makes him look almost human again.

“God.. what the fuck did he send me out for…” Judar grumbles and kicks Hakuryuu in the gut, or rather, Hakuryuu lets the demon kick him. The force is pitiful for a man his height, though Hakuryuu doubts Judar held back. “I don’t want to see your face ever again. You can rot in Hell alone for all I care.”

“Judar…”

“Fuck off.” Judar snaps but is the one to leave, hands shoved in his coat pockets and bringing the chill with him.

Hakuryuu finds himself frozen in place for longer.


End file.
